


and i will not remember that i ever felt the pain

by Fluffifullness



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Character Death Fix, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Coming Out, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fix-It, Fluff, Ghosts, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2020-10-14 17:58:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 25
Words: 111,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20604956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fluffifullness/pseuds/Fluffifullness
Summary: Eddie Kaspbrak doesn't remember closing his eyes.Or: Eddie dies in the fight with Pennywise, but he isn'tgone.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I _did_ come back from a three-and-a-half-year break solely to write a multi-chapter fix-it fic for It: Chapter Two, and what about it?
> 
> Title taken from Van Morrison's _Sweet Thing_ because that entire album is the pinnacle of romance and I'm really goin' through it. I have a near-complete plan for the plot of this fic, and I imagine it'll wind up being relatively long when all is said and done! I swear this _is_ a fix-it; I'm just going to take the long and angsty way there.

Eddie Kaspbrak doesn’t remember closing his eyes.

His first thought when he becomes aware of hot, bright early-afternoon sunlight on his face is that he must have _opened _them at some point, but he can’t remember doing that_, _either. He just… wasn’t seeing, and then he was.

His second thought is that he doesn’t care much for that kind of uncertainty; so, to reassure himself he blinks – once, twice, three times, and raises a hand to his face. Okay – so he definitely has eyes, and a hand, and everything seems to be working the way it’s supposed to. Very belatedly, he realizes he’s practically staring right at the sun, which, _goddammit, Kaspbrak, you’re gonna go blind before you’re fifty, _so he turns away, lowers his hand, and finally notices that he’s standing on the dusty lawn of the house on Neibolt – or it must be, but the house is gone, replaced by a pile of twisted rubble.

His hand comes away bloody. His shirt feels sticky, too, and he looks down almost before he’s connected any dots in his head.

His fourth thought – and his fifth and sixth and so on – is, _Oh, fuck._

-*-

Richie briefly considers staying behind at the quarry when the other Losers start to make their way out of the water and back up to where they left their shoes. His throat still feels tight, like he hasn’t quite managed to get all the tears out yet, like maybe he never will. He could swear he feels it get tighter every time any of the others look his way; the only thing that finally has him slogging out of the water after them is the gnawing fear of how it’ll feel when he finally _is_ left alone with his thoughts.

He thinks he knows, though, because now he remembers how it was after the last time. The vivid nightmares, the jumping at sounds, the trying-and-only-sometimes-succeeding at not glancing over your shoulder all the time. Except that back then he’d had his friends, all of them but Bev, just a bike ride away when it got really bad – months and sometimes years after.

Back then, he’d had Eddie.

Now, he just has an empty apartment and long tours with people he hardly knows, writers and his manager and jokes he pretends are about him and someone else’s fictional life –

“Hey,” he all but croaks, desperate, when he realizes they’re less than a block away from the inn. His friends all turn to look at him, then, and _god _he wishes he’d remembered to say _anything_ until now, because his voice sounds like a gun going off in the middle of a funeral and he’d suddenly love it if he could just take that one little word back, shut up, go up to bed and sleep for days.

Beverly takes a step back toward him, her eyes gentle the same way they were before, down in the well, when he’d tried to get them to help, to understand that what was happening just… _couldn’t. _Not to _him_.

“What’s wrong?” And when he doesn’t answer for another long moment, “Richie?”

Richie wants to ask them to stay. Not forever, just a day or two, and then he’ll man up and go back to his life, and maybe if he’s lucky he’ll forget it all over again.

Or just – some of it, he thinks, because the thought of forgetting any of them – of forgetting Eddie – again is definitely worse than the grief he’s sure he’ll feel either way. You don’t fill a hole in yourself by forgetting it’s there.

He jumps a little when Bev comes up and wraps her arms around him again. Bill and Mike and Ben all follow, and he thinks, _How am I gonna do this without you guys?_

He doesn’t manage to swallow down this round of sobs any better than the first.

-*-

As he runs, Eddie does his best to make some kind of sense out of what he knows. His legs are moving fast, but his mind feels slowed down, like his whole head is running circles through a pool of molasses.

They’d been inside and beneath that destroyed house, fighting, and then Richie had been caught by the Deadlights and Eddie finally couldn’t stand to do nothing. He remembers the rush of relief and triumph, leaning over Richie and seeing the life come back to his eyes and dizzily thinking, _What if I’d kissed him awake instead, what if I kissed him now?_

– and then he remembers being run through with one of Its razor-sharp limbs. He remembers that the wound bled and bled until it seemed like he’d lost more blood than he had to start with. He remembers that it hurt worse than anything he’d ever felt, and he’s still covered in what is unmistakably his own blood. The hole is still there.

But it doesn’t hurt now. It would be like it had never happened if it weren’t for the fact that he can _see_ it plain as day. The wash of panic that sight sends through him is real enough, at least, but even that doesn’t make his chest tighten, or his heart hammer, or – or beat at all, he realizes with a shudder as he stumbles to a stop and slams his hand first to his neck, where his pulse should be thrumming hard beneath the skin – and then down to his chest, and still nothing.

He collapses to his knees and chokes out a rushed litany of ‘this isn’t real’s and ‘can’t be happening’s. He’s sure he’ll look up to see something awful – the leper, disembodied legs, a mutant dog, that fucking clown – but when he finally looks around after what feels like forever, he sees nothing, just rows of houses and neatly parked cars.

He remembers Richie saying his name. He remembers Richie with his hands pressed to the flow of blood, eyes wide and horrified. He remembers Richie moving away, pleading with him to hang on, reassuring him, and then raised voices, and –

He doesn’t remember dying.

A person would remember something like that, wouldn’t they? If it had happened?

He swallows thickly around more questions – but what if he did, what if everyone else did too, is this hell, did they lose, is he dreaming, how can he make himself wake up, where is everyone – and nearly jumps out of his skin when he hears the crunch of footsteps approaching on the sidewalk behind him.

He stumbles back to his feet as quickly as he can and whirls around, ready to run if he has to. But it’s just a woman, a stranger – blonde, with dark circles under her eyes, distressed jeans and a phone in her hands. She looks bored, and maybe a little put-out. Normal, with a grocery bag dangling from one arm. She must not have noticed him yet, because she doesn’t seem to be anywhere near as alarmed as most people would be if they saw anyone as messed up as Eddie’s sure he looks.

“Uh,” he starts, hoping to at least avoid startling her. He’s not sure what to actually say, but he can feel himself calming down a fraction, anyway; just seeing another person, apparently alive and going about their day as if nothing terrible has been happening in Derry, makes him feel a little more grounded. “Have – have you seen any –”

He doesn’t manage to finish that sentence, because she glances up from her phone then, right up at him – and keeps walking, her expression entirely unchanged. Like she’s looking straight through him.

“Hey, wait – please, I just need to talk to someone,” he says, unnerved and a little insulted. Who just ignores someone who’s clearly hurt this bad?

But he doesn’t get any response, even when he raises his voice and finally starts stomping after her. “Hey, seriously, could you – call an ambulance or something? I – I think I need a hospital, _please_.”

No response. He tries to put a hand on her shoulder – not too hard, just enough to get her attention, to force her to at least acknowledge him by shaking his hand off.

It doesn’t pass through her, exactly, because he can feel her shoulder beneath his hand. Soft, worn T-shirt, heat that makes him wonder if he should be feeling colder than he does. He tries to hold on, and she just… slips out of his grip. No reaction, not even a wrinkle in the fabric of her T-shirt.

His unbeating heart drops right into his stomach.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lightning-quick update because I continue to be in my feelings!

Eddie takes off running in the direction of the inn again, and he doesn’t have to _try _not to think anymore because his thoughts are just a static television hum of panic-panic-panic and all he wants is to see his friends and for them to see _him_ so that he can finally wake up from whatever this is and go back to the real fucking world.

He rounds a corner at a dead sprint that leaves no burn in his muscles, drawing quick and sharp breaths he doesn’t feel like he actually _needs_, and not one person has turned to look at him and his filthy, blood-soaked clothes and his gaping chest wound. No matter how close he gets to fully body-slamming random passersby, no one seems to notice. It’s like he can’t quite make contact with anyone, like he’s – there, but – _not _–

This time, the people he almost runs into are his friends, pulled into a tight group hug just down the street from the inn. He sees Beverly’s bright red hair first, and the instant flood of relief forces a choked-off sob from him as he draws himself to an abrupt halt.

And then he notices Bill, his eyes red-rimmed and expression grim, and Mike with his mouth set in a hard line, like he’s trying not to cry, and Ben with his eyes closed and brow furrowed.

And Richie, tucked into the center of the group, shoulders shaking with the force of his crying. A couple pushing a stroller on the other side of the street glances their way when a particularly painful-sounding sob wracks its way through him, but no one in the group seems to notice the attention.

They also don’t seem to notice Eddie.

“Rich…?”

No one moves. Cold dread immediately settles in the pit of Eddie’s stomach, but he steadfastly reaches out to his friends to try again. Just a light pat on Bev’s back, a hand on Bill’s shoulder, and he forces a laugh and says, “What, did Tozier lose his room key or something? You know you can just ask the front desk for a new one, right?”

For a second or two, he thinks Richie is about to answer, _finally_, with a big, cheery ‘sike!’ or some stupid comeback – ‘Don’t worry, Eds, I’ll just stay with your mom instead’ – but instead what comes out of his mouth, in between sniffles and _wow, it’s weird to see Richie Tozier crying like that_ is, “Look, I know everyone’s busy being crazy successful and all that, but – I just – if –”

Everyone seems to take that as their cue to give him a little space, which brings Eddie more fully into their little circle. They’ve left an open spot in their midst, so that he doesn’t even have to try to move from where he’s frozen, wide-eyed and shaking.

Bill’s response drowns out Eddie’s breathless, “What?”

“I think I can s-s-stick around for another day or two.” His gaze drifts right _past _Eddie over to Ben and the others. “What about y-y-you guys?”

Mike nods. “I’ve got plenty of packing to do. You’ll probably all be long gone by the time I’m out of here.”

Beverly looks straight at Ben and says nothing until he clears his throat and says, “We can do the same.” The look he shoots Bev poses an obvious question; she nods in silent agreement, then places a hand on Richie’s shoulder.

“We’re all just a phone call away, too, you know. We all miss him. We know that isn’t going to go away overnight.”

Richie looks stricken all over again, which Eddie thinks is unfair because now he’s positive that_ he’s _the one they’re talking about, _he’s _the one they can’t see or hear or touch, _he’s _the one who must have died-but-not-quite-died somewhere down there, his last audible words nothing but a bad joke. He’s the one who can stand here in a circle of the closest friends he’s ever had and still be more alone than he’s ever thought possible.

And all he can think to do is close the distance between himself and Richie and pull him into a hug he knows Richie won’t even be able to feel – but _he _feels it, goddammit, and right now it’s all he has to ground himself.

Richie’s breath catches audibly in his throat. Eddie manages to quell the surge of hope he feels even before Richie says, “Thanks, guys. Hope you’re looking forward to getting a ton of calls at three in the morning.”

That earns him a chorus of good-natured groans, to which he responds with a half-decent imitation of his usual cheer, “What? You want me to wait _all_ _night _to tell you about the TV I’m watching?”

In spite of – well, everything – Eddie can’t resist taking half a step back just to grin and snap, “Swear to god, Tozier, if you spoil anything I’m watching I’ll show up at your doorstep at four a.m. with a baseball bat.”

It doesn’t go the way it’s supposed to, with another stupid retort and a second chorus of eye-rolls and fond smiles from the other Losers. _Of course it doesn’t_, Eddie thinks bitterly. But for a moment, as the others laugh or grumble little complaints about time zones and bad jokes, he could swear he sees Richie mouth the words ‘baseball bat’ with a distant look in his eyes, before he shakes his head and smiles _through _Eddie at their friends – mostly wearing tired smiles, now, he notes when he turns to look at them too.

“Dunno about you guys, but I could really use a 14-hour nap right about now.”

With that, Mike bids everyone a very early good night and splits off in the direction of the library, while the remainder of the Losers’ Club turns and heads back toward the inn – first Ben and Bev, walking in tandem, and then Bill not far behind them. Richie lingers for just a moment longer, eyes fixed somewhere in the middle distance, and Eddie stares at him, trying to decide how likely it is that he’d imagined… whatever that was. He tries to follow Richie’s gaze – nothing. Blue sky, white clouds. Not even a bird in the sky.

When Richie finally sighs and starts toward the inn, too, Eddie follows him. He slips into the lobby behind Richie – but could he move through a closed door, if he really wanted to? – and then he hesitates briefly at the bottom of the stairs when Richie starts up them. He doesn’t really want to be any more alone than he evidently has to be, but this whole invisibility thing is already beginning to wear on him badly enough that he’d almost enjoy being able to pretend none of it is happening. Sit alone somewhere, sulk a little, and try to ignore the awful tacky feeling of his bloody, tattered clothes.

That makes him wonder – can he at least put on something else of his, maybe something that’s still in one piece so he won’t have to keep dismissing lingering worries about infections every time he glances at the – the hole?

He makes it to the top of the stairs just in time to see Richie disappear into his room. He considers making an attempt at the whole walking-through-walls thing then, if for no other reason than that it’d scare the hell out of Richie if he could actually see it happen, but who is he kidding – he’s not quite ready to learn the answer to that particular question. He’s had plenty of surprises for one day, and he’s pretty sure Richie wouldn’t appreciate being barged in on, invisible intruder or not.

He thinks he hears the sound of muffled crying through the thin wood of the door – and, no, he definitely wouldn’t appreciate it. Right?

Ignoring the unpleasant twist of guilt in his chest – the closest thing to an actual sensation he’s felt there since he came to – Eddie moves past Richie’s door to his own. He’s in luck – he’d forgotten to make sure it was closed in the aftermath of Bowers’ unexpected appearance and subsequent stabbing. It’s not like Eddie to be careless about things like that, though, so despite the fact that any would-be serial killers probably wouldn’t be able to see him come in, anyway, he gives the room a cursory once-over. _No wannabe murderers here this time_, he thinks. Just an invisible man with a gaping stab wound.

He eyes the open door with distaste.

_Well, here goes nothing._

He gives the door a gentle push. It doesn’t budge an inch. He pushes a little harder, then leans into it with his full weight. _Nothing_ is right. It doesn’t even creak. It might as well be made of solid steel and have no hinges at all.

He gives up, feeling more hopeless than ever, and doesn’t bother trying to unzip any of his bags to find a clean shirt. He’s sure anyone who happens to walk past in the hallway won’t even notice an indentation on the bed where he sits perched, miserable, on the edge.

-*-

Richie is _exhausted_, but that apparently isn’t enough to keep him from struggling to sleep all afternoon and into the evening, long after everything else in the inn has gone quiet and still. He keeps seeing the look on Eddie’s face, when he’d been impaled. Confusion, disbelief, panic and pain. Every time he starts to drift off he snaps awake to the sound of his name spilling from Eddie’s lips, bloody and breathless. He can’t stop thinking about the empty room next to him, the neatly packed, endearingly excessive luggage and tidily made bed. There are probably still flecks of blood on the bathroom tiles, he thinks. If Eddie were there –

He kicks off the tangle of sheets he’s been fruitlessly adjusting and readjusting for hours and drags the palms of his hands down his face. It doesn’t do much to stop the latest upwelling of tears, but it _almost_ helps get rid of the images.

_Fuck it_. There’s only one thing – one person that’ll really help, and he’s not _here_.

That silent fucking room, one Eddie’d only stayed in for one night, is the closest he can get, and what could it hurt, Richie reasons, as long as he slips back into his own room before anyone notices.

So, doing his best to keep his footsteps whisper-quiet, Richie creeps out into the hall and into the vacant – into _Eddie’s_ room. He lets his gaze linger on the suitcases by the window for a moment, and he doesn’t look at the blood he’s pretty sure is still in the bathroom because he’s had _plenty _of that for one eternity.

After what feels like one more eternity, he drifts over to Eddie’s bed and collapses onto it.

-*-

After a while, Eddie can’t help but notice the muffled sounds of tossing and turning coming from next door. Richie’s obviously not getting much sleep, which is – bad. Awful, actually, at their age, and after everything he’s been through in the last 24 hours. If Eddie thought it’d do any good, he’d march over there now complaining about the noise, just to offer his friend a sleeping pill. He has – he _had_, he guesses – some in one of his bags. He had some of just about everything, just in case.

He’s just about to try getting up and knocking, anyway, when Richie beats him to it.

“You asshole,” Eddie groans, falling back on the bed when Richie appears in the doorway. “I specifically decided _not _to barge in on you, and here you are just going right on ahead.” Richie, of course, doesn’t say anything to defend himself, so Eddie just huffs and mutters, “Rude,” for good measure.

Still, he doesn’t take his eyes off the other man as he shuffles toward the window – no, toward his suitcases? The light still filtering through the open window reaches Richie’s face, then, and it’s obvious he’s been crying.

_What is he doing here, anyway?_

Eddie jolts upright when Richie eventually turns and lands on the bed beside him, but Richie remains blissfully unaware of how badly he’s just startled the bed’s owner; he’s busy bunching his hands into fists around the comforter. His breath hitches, and then he buries his face in the soft material. He’s shaking, again, like he’s trying to keep himself quiet, and Eddie thinks it’s probably working well enough. He almost wishes it weren’t, because the hand he hesitantly raises to Richie’s back clearly isn’t providing any kind of comfort, and Richie _clearly _needs it.

“Wouldn’t have pegged you for the emotional type,” Eddie mutters, mostly to himself. He remembers… a lot of things, but he can’t remember ever seeing his best friend cry so much and so often. He’s already made up his mind that he’d rather not have to see it again.

Then Richie whispers something Eddie only _mostly _manages to make out, three words, before his breathing finally starts to even out and slow down.

“Miss you, Eds.”

And Eddie… doesn’t know what to make of that.


	3. Chapter 3

Eddie tries to sleep, too, in the early hours of the morning. He doesn’t feel tired – not physically, at least – but it feels _wrong _not to. He sort of gets the feeling that Richie might not even mind, if he woke up and could see Eddie sleeping there beside him.

He doesn’t see him, though, and Eddie doesn’t come anywhere close to falling asleep, which means he’s wide awake when Beverly creeps past his door, stopping short when she notices that his bed isn’t empty.

“Eddie –”

A jolt runs through him, and he’s off the bed and halfway to the hall in an instant.

“Beverly?”

But she’s still looking at the bed, not him. Through him. It takes both of them a moment to process what’s happening, and if Bev’s expression is anything to go by, he’s not the only one who’s just had an irrational hope dashed.

Eddie looks back at the bed and the sleeping figure on it just as Beverly says, “Richie…” She looks sad, or – or pitying, almost, and Eddie is suddenly afraid that she’ll come in and wake him up. Obviously Richie hadn’t wanted to be overheard, much less seen, and in a way he feels like it’s his fault that he was.

Without thinking, he says, “He’s barely slept, alright, so just – let him be.”

But Beverly doesn’t do anything, just watches for a moment – making sure she can see the rise and fall of his breathing, maybe. Her expression is hard to read, but there’s no malice in it. No judgment. Without a sound, she pulls the door shut. Eddie can hear her slip back down the hall, and then there’s a quiet knock several doors away.

Ben’s voice answers, bleary at first and then surprised, happy. It’s hard not to crack a smile when that door clicks shut and the hall goes quiet again.

-*-

Richie wakes with a start and a curse. His stomach flips almost painfully when he realizes that those aren’t his bags on the floor, that he’s still in Eddie’s room, and that bright sunlight is filtering onto the _closed _door. Fantastic – he let himself sleep _way too long_, and someone must have seen, because there’s no way he closed that door himself. Someone must have seen, and at this point he might as well have posted a note on the door announcing his stupid, broken heart to everyone because – because who does that, just wanders into their dead best friend’s bed and sleeps there –

“Fuck,” he manages, and he just barely makes it into the bathroom before he has to throw up.

It takes him over an hour to work up the nerve to open the door and sneak back into his own room. He’d been right about the blood in Eddie’s bathroom, and the sight of it is probably the only thing that gets him out and into his own room sometime this week. He can hear Bev and Ben talking downstairs, though he can’t make out any of the words. They must have heard him, too, though, because it’s not long after that he hears a knock at his door.

He’d been working on cleaning his glasses in the sink, and he nearly drops them in his haste to put them back on. If he’s lucky, they’ll hide whatever’s left of the puffiness.

“Beverly,” he says when he finally pulls the door open as casually as he can.

She’s smiling, but there’s something careful in the way she looks at him when she invites him down to breakfast. “Turns out Ben’s become a master chef,” she says, and it’d be hard to miss the hint of pride in her tone when she says that.

Richie gives her his most convincing yawn and makes up an excuse about needing a little more time to sleep. If she knows, or if she suspects, he’s sure she’ll let him leave it at that – but she doesn’t, and her expression gets a little gentler, a little less casual.

“Of course,” she starts, and then she bites her lip and Richie feels like he might need to throw up again.

“Bev,” he blurts, catching even himself off-guard. “Promise you won’t – if you saw –”

“I promise,” she says, immediately, but he doesn’t relax, so she tries again. “I won’t bring it up again if you don’t want me to, but first I need to make sure you know that we all care about you, and if you ever did want to talk about this, it wouldn’t change that. We all love you, Richie.”

Richie’s just amazed that she can stand there, look him in the eye and be that _honest _without seeming the least bit hesitant about it. It takes him two tries to talk past the lump in his throat. He means to thank her, but what comes out is just, “‘This,’ like the clown, or Eddie or” – and he can’t bring himself to say it out loud, even though he trusts her and there’s nothing in her expression that implies she wouldn’t take it in stride. His face is already hot with shame just having let it hang in the air, unspoken but _there._

Beverly just offers him a reassuring smile and gathers him into a hug. “It’s up to you. I’m not trying to corner you into anything.”

“I know,” he says. “I know. I’ve just never – said it. Not to anyone. Don’t even know where to start.” His heart is hammering so fast he thinks it might give out. How is he supposed to explain that he’s spent over twenty years digging for neutral words and only ever coming back with the ones that hurt? That he’s always _felt _without even really remembering that they’d been used against him, that some part of him remembered it was dangerous while another part just _yearned _for something and someone he could hardly put a name to?

“I miss him, Bev,” he says instead. “Miss him a lot.”

Her arms tighten around him, and for a moment it feels almost like enough. Like a weight just starting to lift.

-*-

Eddie is quick to latch onto the relief he feels when Richie changes his mind and agrees to join the other Losers for breakfast. He can’t remember the last time he ate, and he suspects it’s been at least as long for Richie. Eddie doubts _he_ needs the food – he’d feel it by now if he did. He always eats – he always _ate _at the same times every day, after all. Add that to the list of things he doesn’t need and can’t do, then. How would he pick it up, anyway?

But Richie needs it, and – and Eddie hopes that whatever Ben’s been making will be easy on Richie’s stomach. In case it’s still upset. That’s important, he thinks. Something that’ll help him recover plenty of energy, too, like – like maybe he should go check, and stop stalking Richie through private moments he _definitely _wasn’t meant to overhear.

Leaving Richie to freshen up in genuine privacy this time, Eddie all but staggers down the stairs, marveling at how a mostly-dead – undead? Just dead? – man can feel so _dizzy_. He almost envies Richie for being able to puke. If Eddie did, it’d probably be glowing green ectoplasm or something. Ugh.

It turns out that it actually does help him calm down, hanging around Beverly and Ben. They’re cooking side-by-side in amiable silence, shoulders occasionally bumping together, and as Eddie watches, Ben adds a final few pancakes to an impressively large stack of them. Bev is frying eggs in a pan, and there’s toast – good, Eddie notes, he hopes Richie starts with that just to be safe.

The whole kitchen and lobby smells incredible. The scent’s probably wafting up the stairs now, hopefully luring Bill and Richie down to investigate soon; the other two are already starting to eye the food with undisguised interest.

Clearly the smell of it works on Bill, because he joins them, then, and they carry on light conversation for a while, complete with quiet, unnoticed interjections from Eddie. It just takes a little pretending to feel like he’s still a part of the group; it’s not enough, but it’s not bad. It distracts him from everything else, at least. He watches them pick at bites of food in between occasional worried glances up the stairs.

They’re all pleasantly surprised when Mike drops by with several to-go cups of coffee. “Figured I wasn’t alone in needing some of this,” he greets them with a wide smile. Even Eddie laughs a little – he could kill for some good, old-fashioned caffeine right now, but he’ll settle for watching his friends drink it like it’s the best thing any of them has ever laid their hands on.

That’s when Richie finally makes an appearance, to the apparent relief of everyone present. He’s looking better, freshly showered and wearing a smile that only looks a _little _rehearsed. He zeroes in on the cardboard drink carrier on the counter the second it’s within eyeshot, and his smile turns more genuine. “Is that coffee? Mike, you’re a _lifesaver_. Dibs on like five of these.”

He pauses, then, and hesitates before clearing his throat. “Guess there is an – an extra one, though, huh?”

_Oh, _Eddie thinks.

He’s right – there are six cups altogether. _Guess I got one, after all. _Eddie reaches out and traces the edge of the plastic lid on the one closest to him. Probably not sanitary, he thinks; he still hasn’t managed to get much of the grime off his skin, given that the only fabric he can use to clean up is the clothes he’s been wearing since before they all went into the sewers.

Mike looks like he’s recovering from a gut-punch. Everyone kind of does, and the whole room goes silent for a painfully awkward moment, until Mike tries his best to cover by saying, “Uh – I must’ve miscounted. It was… self-serve. Guess you can claim two, if you want?” It’s obvious that everyone recognizes the lie before he’s even said it.

Richie just nods absently, his gaze never permanently leaving the two untouched coffees. Eddie has to resist the urge to throw an arm around him, or at least push the other cup toward him. He pokes at it; nothing happens, but he can feel the heat still radiating off of it. “At least take one of them,” he urges instead.

He can’t even drink the one he’s unofficially claimed, but he’s so grateful for it he thinks he might start crying. It’s the most recognition he’s gotten from anyone since yesterday, after all. Less than a day, and all it takes is an accidentally-purchased coffee to quell a little of the loneliness that keeps bubbling up in him every time he’s reminded that, for all intents and purposes, the only person he still exists to is himself.

“H-h-he’d appreciate it,” Bill murmurs, another break in a tense silence. “E-Eddie w-w-w-would.”

“I do,” Eddie whispers.

“Yeah, and he’d want me to have two,” Richie adds. It’s obviously meant to be a joke, but his voice is too thick with emotion to really sell it; still, everyone seems relieved when he reaches out and grabs both cups – Eddie relinquishes his reluctantly, but gun to his head, he’d have to admit he doesn’t mind sharing if it’s with Richie. It’s just about the closest thing to an apology he has to offer.

He wishes he could give Richie a real apology – for eavesdropping, for never having the backbone to put his own feelings into words, for the unfairness of it all. For the hole in his chest and the silence between them.

Add one thing to the list of things he _does _need and _can _do; he cries, curled in on himself at the table with only himself to hear it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this not really knowing if the inn had a kitchen in the movie, or if this is a bar-only kind of place, but I refuse to take it back either way!


	4. Chapter 4

Richie doesn’t drink the second coffee. He barely touches the one that was meant for him, just so it won’t seem as weird when he takes both cups out with him after breakfast. He’s pretty sure everyone notices, anyway, but they don’t comment on it – although Bill does raise an eyebrow at him as he steps out with a promise to be back in a few hours, one cup tucked gingerly against his side so he can get the door open.

He feels a little bad for asking the whole Losers’ Club to stick around for his sake just to run off on his own the first chance he gets, but he’d feel worse if he didn’t do this. It should be easy, he thinks, if he could do it when he was just a kid; all he has to do is show up.

The hard part is being honest, even without an audience.

-*-

“Do you think someone should go with him?” Mike asks the second the door swings shut behind Richie. Eddie watches him go with a pang of regret and has to remind himself again that his personal feelings don’t give him the right to follow Richie around when he almost certainly wants to be left alone.

_Except he said he missed me_, some desperate part of him tries to insist._ And he doesn’t know I’m here._ Wouldn’t he want Eddie around, if he knew he was?

But Eddie’s already violated enough boundaries for one afterlife, and what good would his presence do, anyway? If it’s his fault Richie’s so broken up despite the fact that they _won_, all but two of them, isn’t just letting him get on with his life the least Eddie can do? His own regrets he’ll just have to get used to holding onto, like he has for 27 years already – for longer, maybe.

Hell, maybe now he’ll have the time to parse them, instead of carefully compartmentalizing everything like he’s always done. _Not that it’ll do me much good._

“He would’ve asked if he w-wanted us along, w-w-wouldn’t he?” Bill asks. The re-affirmation of Eddie’s own thoughts sends a second, traitorous pang of unhappiness coursing through him.

“I don’t know,” Beverly sighs. She looks as worried as Eddie is starting to feel, despite his best efforts to the contrary. Richie’s just going for a walk somewhere nearby, right? What could possibly happen to him with the worst thing in Derry dead and gone? Without even thinking, Eddie goes to one of the front windows and watches Richie go. His pace is less leisurely than it is sluggish, but he hadn’t had much of the coffee he’d seemed so excited about, and definitely not enough sleep the night before – so that’s probably all it is, right? Whatever he’s on his way to do ought to help him put all of this behind him, and then he'll be _fine_.

Eddie feels a puff of breath against the back of his neck and nearly jumps out of his skin – but it’s just Bev, her face pressed close to the glass and her eyes fixed on Richie.

He doesn’t get much farther up the street before she gets up and hurries out the door with a warning _stay-put _glance at the other three.

Eddie follows her out before the _smart, correct, reasonable _voice in his head can dig its claws into him again, lets her flag Richie down and – and yeah, Ben and Bill and Mike are all watching curiously from the very same window. He notices at the same time Richie seems to.

“Hey,” they all say in unison – Beverly a bit breathless, Eddie sheepish and Richie just a little guarded. He waits for Beverly to speak, his eyes shifting between her and a spot on the pavement.

“Are you okay?” she says, voice low.

Richie blinks. “Uh – yeah, I mean” – he sighs – “I mean no, but there’s something I want to do here.” The _alone _is strongly implied by his tone of voice. He’s fully staring at the sidewalk, now, and it’s obvious to Eddie that he’s hoping Bev won’t pry.

“Dangerous?” she asks after a long, considering moment.

Richie laughs humorlessly. “No,” he says, but there’s obviously more to it than that.

Another pause, then Beverly nudges Richie in the ribs, which earns her a second, quieter laugh and a return nudge. She waits for Richie to look at her again, then firmly says, “We’re all gonna have dinner together tonight. Promise you’ll be back in time?”

“Yeah,” Richie says, “but I’ll make it another honest-to-god _oath _if Ben’s cooking again. When did he learn how to make pancakes taste that good?”

Beverly grins at him. “He says he’s just had some time to experiment with spices and things. I bet he’d give you a recipe if you asked.”

Richie shakes his head. “Nah. I’d burn the batter before I even got it into the pan.”

“No surprise there,” Eddie says.

“Noted,” Beverly says, “then we’ll be sure to keep you well away from the stove tonight.”

“Deal,” Richie agrees with another laugh. His eyes crinkle a little at the edges when he smiles, and it does funny things to Eddie’s chest, and he thinks, _You were made to laugh like that. _And then he thinks, _Where did that come from? _because he’s usually better at – not thinking.

And, fuck, he comes back down to earth just in time to see Beverly dragging their friends back from the window and waving apologetically at Richie.

Oh, jeez – he doesn’t want to sit around alone, Eddie thinks in a daze. Definitely not.

“This is technically your fault,” he says when Richie starts walking and Eddie sets his own pace to match. “So you don’t get to complain about this one. Just don’t get into any fights with giant evil clowns, because I won’t be able to bail you out this time.”

Richie, to his surprise, laughs to himself. His shoulders start to droop a little less as the minutes pass; Eddie hadn’t even realized they’d _been _droopy, which makes him feel guilty all over again.

He stops talking to himself, eventually, and settles for sneaking repeated glances at Richie as they pass through town and the distance between little buildings starts to widen and widen. Their pace quickens after a while, but it still doesn’t dawn on Eddie where they’re going until they’re there.

“The Kissing Bridge, really? Don’t tell me you’re planning on going for a stroll in the woods, Rich.”

But Richie doesn’t jump over the fence, or even really look at the trees behind it; he just walks up to it and stops there, his grip tightening on the coffees in his hands.

They’re probably cold by –

“Oh wow,” Eddie murmurs when he realizes that the point Richie is laser-focused on isn’t a random one at all this time. He kneels in front of the letters seconds ahead of Richie.

_R + E._

Eddie’s breath stutters in his throat. Richie lets out a held breath with a tremor of its own.

The carving is clearly old – almost three decades old, but deep enough to still be legible now.

“You did this?” Eddie breathes. “Back then?”

Richie, oblivious, traces the lines with shaking fingers. His eyes are wet, but he’s also smiling like he’s looking right through the worn-down wood and into a fond memory.

“I worried about this for months afterward, y’know,” he says, a little self-consciously. “That someone would see it and know what it meant. We rode past it so many times on our way to the clubhouse, and I always thought – if you saw it, that’d be the _worst._” His voice cracks on the last word, half a laugh and half a sob.

Eddie feels dizzy all over again. Richie’s talking to him – kind of, he thinks, because Richie doesn’t seem to notice when Eddie works up the courage to put his hand over top of Richie’s, and he doesn’t respond when Eddie says, “I wish I had.”

He doesn’t know what he would have done if he had. Nothing, probably. Turns out Richie’s always been braver than him. More self-aware, more… all-figured-out, for better or worse.

Richie keeps talking. He takes out a little pocketknife, too, and Eddie instinctively moves his hands before Richie presses the blade into the first letter of his own name and begins to carve it deeper into the wood.

“I wish I knew what you’d’ve thought about it. If – if you’re watching or listening or whatever – first off, I hope you’re rocking the halo and big puffy wings, I’m sure it’s a good look for you” – Eddie snorts down at the gory wound in his chest. If only he knew – “and second, I hope this is okay with you, since there’s not a – a tombstone, or” – Richie stops, swallows thickly, and just breathes for a moment, slow and deep. He’s almost done with his carving – drawing his knife down the second line in Eddie’s “E.” Eddie waits patiently and wishes he could do more to make this easier on him.

“It didn’t seem right,” Richie finally says. “Going back to that fucking house.”

“Good call,” Eddie agrees. Just the thought of it is… unnerving. He could still be down there, which – yeah, that’s not a literal rabbit-hole he’s eager to go down, at all.

“Also,” Richie finishes lamely, “I brought you – this.” He gestures at one of the coffees, brushing Eddie’s arm just slightly as he does so. “Mike bought it, only kind of by accident, so you know – we all miss you.” He gets quiet again, fidgeting a little. It’s only then that it occurs to Eddie that the gravel is probably an uncomfortable place to sit for so long, and he wishes, inexplicably, that he had a sweatshirt or something to offer Richie as a cushion. “It’s weird, you know. Maybe it’s just… _Derry_, but sometimes it’s like you’re not gone – in a good way. Obviously.”

_That _gets Eddie’s attention.

“Yeah, Richie, I’m right here. Your own personal, invisible stalker, remember?”

Richie just smiles that fond, dewy-eyed smile again as he pulls the knife through the last dash of the first letter of Eddie’s name. Another wordless confession left to hang in the air, but this time Eddie can believe that it’s meant for him, and he’s honestly glad he followed Richie down here.

Maybe, Eddie thinks, he should ignore that _smart, correct, reasonable_ voice just a little more often. Maybe he should’ve done it more when he was alive-alive and not… whatever this is, and maybe that regret is his biggest. Maybe it means he has to face the fact that his life could have been something else, that he could have been happy and love could have been something he remembered what it was like to feel. He’s pretty sure it’s too late for most of that now, but at the very least, maybe his presence _does_ do some good – or at least nothing bad. If he has to be stuck in this static, lonely little limbo for whatever foreseeable future he still has, maybe it can be like this.

He can’t think of anywhere else he’d rather be.

He holds on to that hope against the sharp ache of knowing how futile it is – being here, hearing this, and not being able to do anything about it.

For the second time that day, Eddie absently touches the edge of his coffee cup. He was right, of course – it’s gone cold. But that doesn’t seem to be deterring Richie from sipping at his own, or even from shifting so his back is to a fence post, like he plans to be here a while. Eddie takes a final, long look at the carved words framed between their bodies – it’s kind of poetic, he thinks, if only in a tragic sort of way – and then he copies Richie, leans into the old wood and sighs. It’s… _a lot_, and he’s getting choked up again, so he allows himself another moment of weakness and gingerly leans into Richie’s side, because he’s warm and he’s here just for Eddie, after all.

Richie gasps and flinches away from the contact.

Eddie nearly loses his balance and topples to the ground; he barely catches himself in time. It’s so unexpected that his first reaction is instant, desperate regret, then _hurt_, and then – “Oh shit. You felt that.” He stares at Richie – who’s already scrambled back onto his feet with one hand pressed to the spot Eddie had just touched – with open-mouthed wonder.

“Oh what the fuck – that’s not – what the _fuck –”_

“Rich?” he all but shouts, and then he’s on his feet, too, with one hand outstretched toward Richie.

Richie doesn’t see it. He’s backing away and rubbing at his side now, like he’d been stung. Eddie tries to remind himself that _anyone _would be terrified if some invisible thing suddenly touched them unexpectedly and they _actually felt it, fuck, _but the hurt-regret-shame comes back at him with a vengeance anyway.

“Sorry,” he croaks, and then he sighs around the lump in his throat. “Guess this means you have _some _sense, huh? Sixth sense, but still…”

Richie doesn’t laugh, either. He looks like he’s busy running through a list of every possible explanation for what just happened. Or only the worst of the worst-case scenarios, maybe. His eyes dart to the growing pool of spilled coffee by Eddie’s feet, and then he mutters, “This just had to happen _here_.” He shakes his head. His next words sound like a very earnest effort to talk himself into – or out of – something. “Probably just my imagination. Definitely.” He rubs at the bridge of his nose and says, “Guess that’s more than enough caffeine for me. I should – get back.” He goes to collect his now-mostly-empty coffee cup, and more quietly, says, “Sorry, Eds.”

“I – Richie, come _on_, you’re so _close, _are you serious?!”

He badgers Richie all the way back to the inn, pleading and explaining and almost begging him to notice something else, but the moment has passed, and Richie doesn’t breathe a word about it to the other Losers when they welcome him back at the door.

Eddie gives up, eventually, and although he lingers beside Richie for the rest of the day even so, he’s careful not to touch him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter will put us at the end of the first act / start of the second, if you were to divide this fic roughly into three sections! I had a harder time with this one - Eddie is sort of hard to write in the context of a story where I'm Attempting to deal with two different experiences with internalized homophobia!


	5. Chapter 5

It’d felt so _real_. For just a moment, there’d been a weight at his side and little more than the barest _suggestion _of soft breathing – like an echo from the opposite end of a long tunnel. Blink-and-you’ll-miss-it. Richie _could_ have imagined it. It could have been because of sleep deprivation, or caffeine, or the still-lingering tension of everything that’s happened these past few days, soul-crushing grief aside. He could have wished it into existence, sitting there pining away on a lonely old bridge surrounded by memories. None of those explanations fully convince him, and his mind keeps going back to it, over and over. Like if he just mulls it over long enough, something new will occur to him and he’ll have a more satisfying answer.

He feels kind of stupid, in retrospect, for freaking out like that. He’d thought, for maybe a fraction of a second, that they’d been wrong and Pennywise was alive and kicking with a renewed vengeance, but it wouldn’t have been its style – too subtle, no follow-through. Boring, even. Just one more reason to be glad no one had been around to see him, he supposes; Eddie would have had a field day with it – and nope, no, that’s not the track his thoughts need to be going down, _again_.

Richie resolves to do anything and everything he can to distract himself from thinking about much of anything, but especially about three things in particular: the future, the Kissing Bridge, and Eddie.

As it turns out, the rest of the Losers’ Club is eager to talk about the former; they’re all starting to make plans in the wake of overcoming the thing that’s plagued them, in one way or another, since they were kids. They’re excited, and Richie couldn’t hold that against them in a million years, but after one or two ‘_what about you, Richie_’s that elicit nothing but awkward deflections and half-hearted jokes, he’s glad when they stop trying to include him in it.

He’s content to just listen, really. He’s happy for Ben and Bev. He promises Bill he’ll read his new book the second it’s released, and he makes Mike promise to send him a postcard from sunny Florida. “And try not to get eaten by the gators, alright?”

They take a walk through Derry, steering clear of – well, several places, including the festival grounds at Bill’s request. Ben suggests one last trip to the clubhouse, instead, but Richie’s thoughts immediately go to the coffee cups he’d left behind at the Kissing Bridge. He might as well have hung giant neon arrows for his friends along the most obvious route down there. _R + E. _The ensuing surge of panic has him insisting that it wouldn’t feel right this time, with _both _Stan and – and Eddie gone. That’s instantly enough to get the other Losers to drop the idea, which is almost worth it even though the excuse brings big, obnoxiously insistent tears to his eyes.

Despite the way he throws himself into staying grounded in the present, _everything_ reminds him of Eddie. Maybe the problem, he decides, is that he can’t bring himself to think of Eddie as a part of the past in the first place. The truth is that _nothing_ in Derry feels right without him, not just the clubhouse and the gapingly empty room at the inn, because he should _be _there. Richie lets himself feel like he is, again and again when he can’t keep forcibly reminding himself otherwise.

Now that Richie remembers – now that he desperately hopes he’ll keep remembering – he’s terrified that he’ll feel the same way outside of Derry, too. That whatever comfort he’d started to derive from the familiarity he built out there will be gone, and he’ll still be adrift.

After dinner on their last night in Derry, Mike reluctantly asks what they should do about the suitcases in Eddie’s room. Everyone’s eyes snap straight to Richie, who feels and probably looks like he’s just been slapped.

But he doesn’t start crying, to Mike’s very apparent relief. Richie hears himself answer before he’s even realized what he’s saying.

“I’ll take them.” That earns him looks ranging from confused to concerned, so he adds, “I can get them back to his wife. It’s better than just abandoning everything, right?” He doesn’t say, ‘like we did to him,’ but he can’t help thinking it. He wonders if the others hear it in his voice, or see it in the now-familiar rush of tears to his eyes.

He never used to cry much at all, and now it happens at the drop of a hat.

Bill nods slowly. “Th-th-that’s probably best. Are you sure you’re o-o-o-okay with it, though? A-any of us could handle it t-too, if you want.”

But Richie just shakes his head. He’ll have to check them all on his flight back, but that’s okay. He thinks Eddie would want them to get his things – minus the car, he remembers with a pang of guilt, but at least it was just a rental, with Eddie’s own car still back in some New York auto shop – back to their rightful place, and he wants to be the one who does it.

The morning they’re all set to leave, he makes sure he has the right numbers and addresses for everyone entered into his phone. Bill heads out first, because from the sound of it his wife and the rest of the crew back on the set of his movie are all about ready to send out a search party as it is.

He gets a hug from each of them, then climbs into his car and drives off with a parting promise to stay in touch.

This time, Richie’s pretty sure they all feel like they’ll be able to keep that promise, or at least like they'll all give it the best damn effort they can.

-*-

Beverly watches Bill go with her hand still clasped in Ben’s. Bill had surprised her, yesterday, when he pulled her aside and apologized even before she could say what was on her own mind. (That she loved him like she loves all of them but only like that, that she was sorry but that it had always been about the person who’d written her that poem 27 years ago, and she hadn’t known until a day ago who it really was. In hindsight, she can’t believe she hadn’t known, because there’s always been something unspoken between her and Ben. A special kind of camaraderie. But she wouldn’t have told Bill that.)

She had been planning on telling him about her and Ben’s plans for a 27-year-long-overdue vacation together – time to sort everything out, time to catch up – before she told everyone else.

Instead, he’d apologized and told her that his wife, Audra, had called and they’d had a long talk. That he loved her, that he was happy for Beverly, and for Ben.

“Y-y-you two are good for each other,” he’d concluded. “I mean that.”

She watches him go with a smile on her face. She’ll miss him. She’s happy for him, too.

They all wait with bated breath for a moment after Bill’s car disappears from sight. Beverly is surprised when Richie is the first one of them to clear his throat and say, “I’d better get going, too. My agent’ll kill me if I miss my flight.”

“We could come to one of your shows, sometime,” Ben suggests.

Richie laughs, but it doesn’t quite make it up to his eyes – not unusual for him, these past few days. “Trying to get free tickets, Hanscom?”

Ben laughs, too; Beverly can feel it in the vibration of his hand in hers, and she smiles to herself. He laughs with his whole body, because of course he does – he doesn’t do anything by halves, from building secret clubhouses to loving her. “You know it, Tozier.”

Richie rubs at the back of his neck, and his smile falters a little before settling into something sadder. “Anytime, guys. The front row’ll always be open.”

“See ya, Trashmouth,” Bev calls after him as he starts toward his rental – already loaded up with Eddie’s personal effects, a task Richie had accepted help with only grudgingly. He’d looked so uncharacteristically serious carrying the largest of the already comically large bags down the stairs, like the whole affair was two half-steps removed from a funeral.

And maybe it was, sort of. As close as Eddie might have to one for a while, unless Beverly is right in guessing Richie had been trying to offer him something closer the other day, all on his own with one coffee pressed just a little closer to his heart than the other.

She doesn’t see him climb into the driver’s side and then reverse out toward the road, because Ben’s just ducked in to press a kiss to her forehead and it’s like she’s thirteen again with a postcard held close to her chest and her head in the clouds. She squeezes Ben’s hand, he squeezes back, and when she turns her attention back to Richie, he’s got a knowing-kind-of-teasing grin on his face as he pulls away in his car. She feels her face heat up, despite the fact that what she and Ben have between them now isn’t exactly a secret among the Losers’ Club.

It isn’t until Richie’s turned onto the street and started on his way out of town that she catches a glimpse of _him_ there, in the passenger seat.

This time, she _knows_ it isn’t a trick of the light or her mind trying to let her see what she wants to see – it’s Eddie.

The bandage he’d had over the stab wound in his cheek is gone, leaving the still-open gash exposed. His face is smeared with blood and grime; it stands out that much more against his skin, which is noticeably more pallid than she’s ever seen it, enough so that he looks sickly. He’s wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing the last time she saw him, just as dirty as they were then.

Eddie doesn’t notice her at first; he’s looking at Richie, his expression softer than she can ever remember seeing it. Beverly knows that look – it’s how Ben looks at her. She thinks it’s how _she_ looks at _Ben_. The only difference she can see is that it’s… sadder, on Eddie.

And then he looks past Richie, out the driver-side window, and his eyes lock with Beverly’s for just a moment longer than could possibly be purely coincidental. Eddie has to bodily turn around in his seat to stare back at her, and it’s only because he does that she registers the look of shock on his face to match her own.

He starts to say something – her name? a question? – but she never gets to see the end of it, not because Richie’s car is entirely out of sight yet, but because _Eddie_ is_._ As if he’d never been there at all.

She knows Ben’s noticed something’s off because when her hand goes slack in his, he gives it an uncertain squeeze. She can feel him looking at her, and despite how the world around her still feels slowed-down and strange, she manages to come back to herself enough to tear her eyes away from Richie’s car just before he rounds a corner and is gone.

“Bev?”

“I’m okay,” she says, but her voice sounds distant even to her. “I thought I – I saw something.”

“Something like It?” Mike asks tensely.

“_No._ No, like – like Eddie, with Richie just now.” All in a rush, she realizes that she needs to call Richie – _now, _just in case. Of what, she can’t begin to guess. In case she didn’t just imagine this, too.

“In the car?” Ben asks as she rips her phone out of her pocket and finds Richie’s number.

“Passenger seat,” she says, and then, the second she hears the _click _of Richie picking up, “Richie? You need to come back, now.”

The other end of the line is silent for one gut-wrenching moment. Then – “What, miss me already?” He sounds tense, nervous in the same way Mike just had.

“Just for a minute,” she insists. “There’s… something I need to make sure of.”

Richie doesn’t answer her this time, but she can hear his car engine rev in the background. It takes less than a minute for him to come tearing back around that corner, down the street and into the parking lot.

There’s no sign of anything unusual in the seat beside him now. Beverly can’t decide if that’s better or worse than the alternative.

“What happened?” Richie starts immediately, halfway out of the car almost before he’s even got it in park. His words are echoed back at Bev through her phone; she ends the call and makes a beeline for Richie’s passenger-side door. “Is everyone okay? Did something” –

“We’re fine,” Ben reassures him, but his own bewilderment is obvious. “Beverly says she saw something or… someone?” – he glances at Beverly, but she doesn’t know what more they should say, either – “in the car with you.”

“In the car with – what, are you fucking serious?” Clearly alarmed, he glances between Ben and Bev just as Bev gets his car door open and gingerly prods at the seat she’d seen – she’d _thought _she’d seen Eddie in.

There’s nothing off about it at all. She squints around the interior of the car, trying to make something, anything, out amongst a few specks of dust drifting through the sun that’s slanting in through the open door. She whispers Eddie’s name under her breath, quiet enough that Richie won’t hear, but there’s no answering whisper. There’s just… nothing.

She feels her heart sink.

“Bev? _‘Someone’? _Like who, ‘someone’? Fucking Freddy Krueger?” He punctuates the last question with a half-hearted finger-wiggling mime of the Freddy Krueger knife-glove.

“No, like…” Ben shuffles his weight from foot to foot. He meets Beverly’s eyes again, and this time she shakes her head slightly, so he sighs, relieved, and says, “Like, just… a figure. Nothing very clear.”

Mike frowns a little at that, but doesn’t contradict him.

“It must have been a trick of the light,” Beverly murmurs before Richie can ask for any more detail than that. As badly shaken as _she_ is, the last thing she wants is to _remind_ Richie, or give him some kind of impossible false hope. Aside from dragging him back here in a panic just as he was about to get out of Derry and on with his life, she can’t think of anything crueler. “God, I’m sorry, Rich. I didn’t mean to scare you. I just – I could’ve sworn I saw something, and after everything I couldn’t just…” She shrugs. Swings the car door shut again and steps back toward Ben and Mike.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Richie says. His eyes are still a little wide, but he looks more relieved than anything. “It’s been a hell of a few days, right? I’d rather get a call about a false alarm than fall asleep at the wheel and wake up with a hand through my… chest…” He grimaces and somehow manages to look suddenly a lot closer to vomiting than he had a minute ago. “…Forget I said that. Jeez.”

Mike heads off the awkward silence that would have definitely followed, but with less tact than they’ve all been trying for since Neibolt. “Eddie might’ve thought it was funny, though.”

Even Mike looks a little surprised when Richie scoffs at him and says, “Eds never thought any of my jokes were funny. Probably woulda ripped me a new one, though, huh?”

Like most of his other recent attempts at levity, it would probably have worked better if it didn’t have that jagged edge to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You’ll all just have to accept that I’m telling you only via author’s note that Eddie probably slipped into the car when they were loading his stuff into it.
> 
> Also - this chapter was a day or two later than the others partly because I went to see the movie <strike>for a third time</strike> last night, which means I've noticed a few things I got wrong in previous chapters, like Richie didn't actually walk to the Kissing Bridge (there's literally a shot of him parking his car fml!) at the end of the movie, but you know what? Creative liberties.
> 
> Also also - Richie's line about waking up with a hand through his chest is a reference to at least one death scene that does actually appear in the _Nightmare on Elm Street_ franchise. They tend to run together, but I think it happens in _New Nightmare_, if not also another one?


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this might be the longest chapter I've posted thus far? Having seen the movie four times now, there are a few things I wish I'd thought to include earlier on, but I'm leaning against redoing anything, at least for now and probably just for permanent. Don't wanna risk making this fic too busy!

When Richie volunteers to take Eddie’s things along with him, Eddie can’t believe he’s the only one who isn’t surprised. Sure, he’s also the only one who followed Richie to the Kissing Bridge, but he’d had _two coffees _with him when he left that morning, and he’s broken down in tears _how many times _since Eddie found them all hugging him through it, and how hard can it really be to guess he was off to offer one of those coffees to Eddie, one way or another?

They were always close, weren’t they?

To be fair, though – Eddie’s not sure he would’ve expected it if he hadn’t also seen Richie wander into Eddie’s room practically still in tears that first night, or heard him almost-but-not tell Beverly he loved him. If he hadn’t seen those two letters carved and then re-carved into old, worn-down wood.

Really, the whole thing with the suitcases just cinches a decision Eddie thinks he would have made regardless. He’s had plenty of time to think about it, following everyone – following _Richie _– around Derry for a whole day without being able to speak to anyone or touch anything.

He doesn’t want to stay here. He doesn’t think he has to. There’s no… _tug_, for lack of a better word. He doesn’t know if he still has a body somewhere in this town, but it’s almost disturbingly easy to dismiss the possibility either way; if he doesn’t, it doesn’t matter, and if he does… he couldn’t possibly just _go back _to whatever’s left of it. The thought of it makes him shudder, makes him reach halfway for Richie before he remembers to stop himself.

He’s all that’s left of himself, and he wants to get out just as badly as the others.

He could walk. He could see what the bottom of the ocean looks like – actually, no, _bad_, probably very dark and very full of more things-to-want-to-unsee.

He could hitchhike completely unnoticed with strangers, go somewhere he doesn’t know anyone and try to get used to being basically nonexistent. He could follow any one of the Losers to a point, and then go his own way. He could find ways to keep up with all of them, hang around Bill one week then catch up with Mike the next –

He _should_ go back to his wife, he thinks with a stab of something – guilt? Despair? That should have been his first thought – not just today but yesterday, or at least last night. All he’d thought about that night was how awful and lonely this whole situation was – still is – and about Richie and about how when he looked at his wristwatch at some point, the time on it was frozen.

He glances at the watch for what must be the dozenth time, then, and thinks, _I don’t want to go back._

Who would know, if he did? He’d be doing it for nothing and no one.

Who’ll know if he doesn’t?

Maybe – maybe he can just wait, and _maybe,_ if Richie ever feels him near him again, or even sees or hears him, just once, he’ll do what he’s _supposed _to do and ask him for help contacting Myra. He’ll go back to her, when he can.

He just… can’t, yet.

He couldn’t make himself do it even if he thought it would accomplish anything, because Myra is – well, miles away, and Richie’s right here. Eddie can’t ignore him, or the way he keeps trying to hide his expression from the others every time it clouds over – which is often enough that Eddie’s certain the others notice it, too.

He wants to make sure he’s okay, somehow.

Richie taking his suitcases is just a convenient excuse to slip into that garish red rental car through a conveniently-opened door – and from there, into the front passenger seat where, to Eddie’s immense displeasure, he can’t buckle the seatbelt around himself. He _knows_ it doesn’t matter, but he’d still feel better if he could. He tries to distract himself from that unpleasant buzz of doesn’t-feel-right anxiety while he waits for Richie to part with the others and come back to the car – and that’s something else he has to try to distract himself from: knowing that he can’t say goodbye the same way.

He’s so relieved when Richie comes back and starts the car that he lets himself just… stare for a while. He stares so long, in fact, that he almost forgets to spare a glance at the friends they’re leaving behind.

When he does, Beverly is looking at him.

Like, _definitely, actually _at him, because she locks eyes with him and doesn’t look away, and her mouth is _wide _open in shock.

“Beverly?” he gasps, twisting over the back of the seat without a care in the world for how safe it would be if he were still alive. “Please tell him – tell Richie I’m –”

He’s what? Still here? Sorry? He’s all of those things, but –

And then Bev blinks, like she’s just snapped out of a waking dream. Her eyes dart around for a moment, clearly searching the interior of Richie’s car as he drives on down the road, and Eddie gets that awful sinking feeling again because she isn’t focusing on him at all anymore. Richie’s been oblivious to the whole thing, infuriatingly, so he doesn’t do a thing when Eddie snaps at him to turn around, _please,_ maybe Bev can help –

Richie’s phone ringing startles the both of them, and Richie fumbles for a moment before picking up. He doesn’t even get to say anything before Beverly’s voice comes, too garbled for Eddie to make out, from the other end of the line.

Richie jokes, because of _course _he does, the jerk, but after Beverly says something else – and Eddie’s chest swells with a ridiculous amount of hope even though he still can’t hear what it is – he forces the car into such a sharp U-turn that Eddie _definitely _remembers to fear for his life, this time.

He tries not to feel too betrayed when Beverly won’t even say his name to Richie, after she’s gotten so close to Eddie that he can feel heat radiating off of her, inspected what seems like every inch of Richie’s car and, finally, given up. He’s left to wonder, absently, if people were always this… warm? Eddie doesn’t think so. He thinks he’s just… whatever it is to not have a temperature. He’s like the faux-leather seat Beverly seems to think she’s poking at, rather than the hand he weakly uses to defend himself.

He thinks he gets it, because whatever he is now, it’s not supposed to be possible, and even though he and his friends have seen plenty of things lately that aren’t supposed to be possible, with him it’s different. He’s not some evil eldritch horror out to get them; he’s something they all probably still want to see. It can be so much harder to believe in things like that.

It still hurts. How could it not? Coming this close not once, but twice, and all for nothing? Whatever stands between him and the rest of the world paradoxically feels _more _impenetrable the more he tries to break through it. So maybe Myra will be waiting a long, _long_ time, if she waits at all.

Richie never closed the door on his side, which is why Eddie overhears this second round of goodbyes. He lets out a startled laugh when Richie makes a reference to that stupid fucking _Nightmare on Elm Street _movie. It’s not funny, but it’s such a classic faux pas, coming from him. It’d be kind of cute, if it weren’t for the way Richie immediately stiffens and stammers a weak, “Forget I said that.”

“Eddie might’ve thought it was funny, though,” Mike offers a little nervously. It doesn’t relax Richie in the slightest, but it gets an additional snort out of Eddie. He’d never have admitted it, and they all know it.

In the end, what surprises him most about the whole scene might be that Richie seems to genuinely believe what he says in response, about Eddie never thinking he was funny. He talks like he really thinks he’d deserve it if Eddie could – or _would _– tear into him over that stupid joke.

Eddie can’t make himself just let it go; he sulks through at least an hour of their eerily silent car ride to the airport (because _apparently_, and _bizarrely,_ Richie doesn’t like to listen to music or news or sports or _anything, _even on long car rides where the monotony actually _could _make him fall asleep at the wheel). Eventually, Eddie just can’t take it anymore. He finally bridges the small amount of space between them to lightly squeeze Richie’s hand on the steering wheel.

Emboldened and maybe a little disappointed when Richie takes no notice, he says, “I wouldn’t be following you all the way across the fucking country if I were mad at you, Rich,” because he’s pretty sure this isn’t just about what happened earlier. He hasn’t missed the way Richie periodically has to take one hand off the wheel to drag his hand across his eyes.

Richie doesn’t answer. Richie barely speaks to – or even looks at – _anyone_ he has to interact with when they finally do make it to the airport. Returning the rental car, checking bags, making it through security and finding the correct gate. Eddie’s so caught up in trying to make sure he doesn’t get separated from Richie that he doesn’t have the time to decide if Richie’s acting so off because he just doesn’t care about keeping up a façade without their friends around to see it, or if it’s because he’d needed them around to feel up to it in the first place.

He probably misses them, too.

They’re almost to their gate when a fan recognizes Richie and flags him down; Richie smiles without a hint of sincerity and goes through the motions – the thanks, the autograph, a joke Eddie assumes is from one of his shows – like it’s an absolute slog. It doesn’t seem to bother the dude, but even Eddie’s glad when he leaves them alone to head off toward his own gate. As soon as he’s out of earshot, Richie sighs, long and slow, like he’s trying to steady himself.

It’s only after they’ve gotten situated on the plane – lucky for Eddie, it isn’t full and he actually gets a seat beside Richie in first-class – that Eddie finally lets himself think about what happened with Beverly.

He starts by making a mental list of every time he’s come close to getting someone’s attention since the moment he – woke up, or whatever it was he did, at the Neibolt house. Had Beverly really seen him the night Richie slept in his room, even if only just for an instant? There’s no real way to be sure, but he has to admit that it does seem like it’d be pretty easy to make a mistake like that after abruptly losing a friend that same day.

Eddie swallows thickly and dismisses the thought. Instead, he thinks about Mike and his six coffees. Maybe he’d known without _knowing_ that Eddie was still around? It doesn’t seem all that likely, for the same reasons as that first time with Bev. He hadn’t bought one for Stan, but Stan had never come back to Derry, and it’s not like Eddie’s seen him around lately.

Actually – is it weird that he hasn’t seen anyone else like him? He knows what’s happening to him is _weird_, but the thought that he might be the only one it’s happening to – the only one it’s _ever _happened to? – is downright unnerving. He peers over at Richie, hoping for a comfort he already knows he won’t get. Richie’s eyes are closed, but he doesn’t really look like he’s asleep. He still looks almost painfully tense, and his brow is slightly furrowed. Eddie sighs hopelessly and tells him, “It just seems like if other people were out there walking around without actual bodies, I’d have seen some by now. Especially in fucking _Derry._”

Richie doesn’t offer any opinion on the matter, and neither does anyone else.

Is he really _that _alone – not just among everyone who’s still properly alive, but also among everyone who somehow managed to die whatever the _right _way is?

Is he starting to panic? He thinks he might be starting to panic.

After all, it’s only been a few days and _what if this is what eternity is going to be like? _How long will it be, he wonders, until he forgets what it felt like to sleep and eat and even feel pain? He’s _sure _of it, now: he’ll forget that and a hundred other things that made him human and he’ll _always _be wearing these filthy clothes and he’ll always look like a zombie movie extra, and one day, eventually, Richie will forget Eddie ever existed, and he’ll stop loving him, and maybe he’ll find someone else, and it’ll be for the best because Eddie could never have given him what he deserved, anyway, and he can’t _now, _and the loneliness will eat and eat at him and he’ll always be _helpless_, just like his mother always wanted him to believe he was–

He realizes he’s started pacing up and down the middle aisle when he glances up and sees Richie in his seat in front of him, apparently asleep. His breathing’s slowed, unlike Eddie’s, and although he’s still frowning, his shoulders aren’t as rigid as they’d been earlier – how much earlier? It’s hard to tell, since his stupid watch isn’t working and his phone is god knows where in the sewers of Derry. Eddie wishes that peacefulness were contagious, but right now all it does is remind Eddie of everything he’s lost.

The silence of the cabin is suddenly too much to bear, so to drown it out he just starts talking, “Richie – god, I can’t do this, why is this” – he all but chokes on a sob – “why is this even happening?” It isn’t _fair –_

Richie fidgets a little in his sleep, and his frown deepens to something more noticeable. Eddie only sort of registers that through his own tears until Richie mumbles his name in his sleep.

What he says, actually, is, “Eds…”

That’s all, but it draws Eddie reluctantly back down to the empty seat beside Richie, still shaking and crying but desperate for that little tether to a slightly friendlier reality.

And he thinks of the way Richie had _almost _echoed the tail end of some stupid retort from Eddie just hours after Neibolt, staring up at the sky like he was going to look right through it. How on the bridge, he’d said it was like Eddie wasn’t gone, how he’d felt him lean into his side for just a moment and jerked back like he’d been burned.

Eddie never would have done that _before_, when he was alive and human and visible and vulnerable. He never would have been in that car with Richie, just _looking _without speaking, like he had been when Beverly saw him there. (For the first time, he wonders just what she’d seen in that moment. Something happy? Something sad?) He wouldn’t be here now, if things had ended differently; he’d be on his way back to Myra, and in a sudden moment of clarity he thinks, _How much happier would I have been that way?_

He’d be alive. He’d be mostly alive.

He looks at Richie again, and the sight of him there, exhausted and unguarded, makes Eddie’s heart do something funny that he doesn’t quite have the words to describe. Like it’s just skipped a beat, even though it hasn’t beat in days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you go, word of god that Eddie slipped into the car when they were loading it with his things has been confirmed. I’m so consistent.


	7. Chapter 7

Richie jerks awake when the plane touches solid ground with a sharp lurch and a dull roar. For one disorienting moment, he can’t make up his mind about whether he was actually asleep at all; in his dream, he’d been sitting right where he is now, everything exactly the same, except – except that someone had been crying, he remembers. How could he forget? Someone had been crying – loud, broken sobbing.

It had sounded so _real_, like when you fall asleep before remembering to turn the TV off and the dialogue from it filters right into your dreams. Somewhat self-consciously, Richie raises a hand to his cheeks and is relieved to find them tear-free. Frowning in confusion, he also scans the rest of the cabin as discreetly as possible, but there are only a small handful of other people occupying any nearby seats and none of them look even remotely like they’ve shed a tear in the last hour, at _least._

_– Richie god I can’t do this why is this –_

Richie blinks. He finds himself reaching for the empty seat beside him, fingers outstretched like there’s something there to touch, but of course there’s nothing, just an empty seat and beyond that, an empty aisle.

The plane finally slows to a stop outside the arrival gate, and Richie finally decides that, yeah, in his dream that seat wasn’t empty. And the voice wasn’t just some disembodied stranger’s voice, it was _Eddie’s _– not like he ever heard it in real life, not just scared but _panicked_, but definitely Eddie’s.

“Jesus,” Richie groans into his hand. There are tears stinging at his eyes again, and he _really _doesn’t need this now, on an airplane surrounded by nothing but strangers.

He can do this, right? He told himself he could do this.

The flight attendant pauses on her way down the aisle just to ask him if everything is alright. That doesn’t do much for the growing lump in his throat, so he just nods and waves her on. She gives him a look that’s either offended or judging; to Richie’s frayed nerves, it feels dangerously like the latter. He does his best to hurry off the plane the second they’re given the go-ahead.

Predictably, waiting for Eddie’s suitcases at the baggage claim and collecting each one like they’re pieces of broken glass makes him wish he had a pair of sunglasses or something handy, but he doesn’t, so he settles for doing his best to look anywhere but at other people. His phone. His phone is good. He winds up scrolling aimlessly through it until his thumb is hovering over numbers in his contact list.

He winds up actually dialing one of them, but that’s only after he’s made it back to his car with his menagerie of suitcases in tow. Alone, he doesn’t try as hard to keep everything at bay – the tension alone is starting to give him an awful headache – which is why he probably sounds like a mess when Bill picks up on the second ring.

“Richie, hey,” he says warmly. “Did your flight just land? Everything okay?”

Richie nods. And then he remembers that Bill can’t see it, and that he isn’t, so of course he says, “Yeah, you’re actually the second person I’ve called. Your mom was super excited to hear from me.” He follows that up with a short sigh – honestly he’d consider sacrificing a small animal, like maybe a pigeon or something, if it’d help him make just one joke without looking and sounding like he’s about to start crying in the middle of it.

He can practically hear Bill rolling his eyes. His next words are gentler. “Missing everyone?”

Richie swallows audibly. “Yeah. You, too?”

“Me, too,” Bill affirms.

“Great,” Richie says with a teary little laugh. “Guess that means we all have to find another fucking sewer clown to fight, you know, get the gang all back together…” He lets himself trail off, not really interested in finishing the thought.

Bill waits him out, then, because they both know there’s a reason he’s calling, and Richie doesn’t know where to start now that he’s made it this far. Dammit, he feels ridiculous.

“Actually, I – I fell asleep on the flight, and –”

“Bad dreams?” Bill asks in that knowing, sympathetic way that makes it obvious he’s already had his fair share of them.

“N-no,” Richie says, although he’s sure he won’t be lucky enough to avoid those kinds of nightmares for long, either. “It was weird, y’know, like so… mundane, it made it seem kinda off. But I think Eddie was there. In the dream,” he clarifies lamely, glancing at the empty passenger seat of his car and trying to ignore the unexpected ache it brings to his chest.

Bill is quiet for several beats before he says, “I’m sorry, Rich.”

That’s all it takes to draw several more tears out of him. He’s gonna turn his skin into dried out, salty leather at this rate. “It’s just” – he tries to slow his breathing and only winds up hiccupping – “it’s just, he was – crying, and he sounded so – scared, Bill. Like at Neibolt, but –”

“– worse ,” Bill finishes for him.

“Yeah.”

“It was just a dream,” Bill says lightly. “You know that, right?”

“I don’t – I don’t know,” Richie mutters. “I – look, I know this is stupid, and there’s no way you’d know any more than I would, but do you… think he’s okay? Wherever he wound up, I mean? I just – I think I need to hear it from someone else. You can tell me to fuck off,” he adds more softly. “If it’s too… whatever.”

“I don’t know,” Bill says honestly. “But I hope so.” He hesitates fleetingly before his tone shifts and he says, “I used to wonder the same thing about – about Georgie. I’m not exactly an expert, but I think that’s normal, when you lose someone you love.”

Richie’s mouth goes instantly dry and his stomach flips so fast he actually flinches. He has to focus hard on not getting sick all over the steering wheel. “I – I didn’t – it wasn’t like – ”

Bill just sounds confused when he says, “Love him? I mean, didn’t we all? He was our friend, and you two were the closest.”

_That’s love_, he thinks over the sudden racing of his heart. It’s just not the kind Bill thinks it is. The _normal_ kind –

Richie draws a final, shuddering breath, chokes out, “Sorry, I have to go,” and hangs up before Bill can say anything else.

_Out of the frying pan and into the fire, huh? _He thinks bitterly. If it isn’t one thing, it’s another.

He presses his forehead to the top of the steering wheel and cries.

-*-

When he finally makes it all the way back to his apartment, Richie doesn’t even bother unpacking his own bag. He just tosses it onto the first flat surface he sees, ignoring the buzzing of incoming texts from Bill as he goes. He’s more careful with Eddie’s suitcases; he eases the larger two into the hall closet, then takes the smaller one and sets it on a shelf in the walk-in closet connected to his room.

It almost feels too intimate, having it there alongside all of his own things, but there’s no one around to know, anyway, and he’s too exhausted to move it after the thought’s occurred to him.

He tries to convince himself he isn’t _also_ too exhausted to go through the motions of getting ready for bed, if only because the routine of it might help banish the not-quite-right, austere feeling of coming home to this apartment where the only thing that doesn’t belong is him. He totally fails; all he actually winds up doing is shucking off his shoes and jeans and climbing straight under the covers. He’s pretty sure Eddie would’ve hated that, and, fuck it, he’s already enough of a mess that he’s going to bed before 8 p.m., so he doesn’t try to distract himself from the memories when they start to come.

Honestly, they help soothe that part of him that’s been terrified of forgetting since the second he left Derry. If it were going to happen again, Richie’s pretty sure memories like this would be the first to go, but they’re just hazy in the way he thinks it’s normal for old, old memories to be.

He vaguely remembers Eddie, back when they were all… oh, 16 or so, during a lunch break at school – or had it been out at the Barrens? – going on and on about how gum and heart health are linked, _somehow_ – Richie doesn’t remember that anymore because he probably hadn’t been paying much attention in the first place. Eddie always talked a _lot, _and fast, too. That was how he was always able to keep up with their resident Trashmouth, wasn’t it? Sometimes it was Richie who couldn’t keep up with him.

What Richie _does_ remember about that time is poking fun at his friend to try and hide how _cute_ he thought it was that Eddie genuinely seemed to believe brushing your teeth twice a day was a life-or-death necessity.

The same thought keeps echoing in his head like a bad song. You loved him. _You loved him._

“I still do,” he mutters at the ceiling. He thinks, definitely not for the first time, that he has all along, for three decades and then some, which is _terrifying _because if he could love someone he couldn’t even remember for that long, how is he supposed to _stop _now that he does remember, just because Eddie isn’t here now? He would never have been here, even if things had been different. He has – he had a wife. He had a life of his own.

A life he should have gotten to live.

Things _should _have been different. Richie could have made his peace with that. They’re not like Ben and Bev, and Eddie wasn’t like him, but he’d give anything for Eddie to be alive and safe and happy in New York right now. He would’ve given anything to keep Eddie out of Neibolt.

He drifts off to sleep, his thoughts caught somewhere between another _loved him _and the _should’ve been me _he’d never dare to say to any of his friends.

-*-

For all the good it does him, Eddie can’t help but berate Richie for not bothering with proper bedtime hygiene, or even a fresh change of clothes. “Do you have any idea how many germs are probably clinging to that shirt?” he grumbles. “And you haven’t eaten. Aren’t you hungry? It’s been like nine hours. I swear to god you’re gonna run me into the fucking ground if this is how you live _every day_.”

Richie mutters something to himself, but Eddie doesn’t catch it before he remembers to shut his own mouth. Dammit. Not like it’d do much good to ask Richie to repeat himself – which he does, anyway, just in case. Richie, for all intents and purposes, ignores him.

After that, it doesn’t take long for Richie’s eyes to slip shut and his breathing to slow. Eddie doesn’t say another word, but he also can’t quite bring himself to leave the room, despite the still-open door. He knows he should go and wait in the living room for Richie to wake up, and he feels guilty for hoping, but if Richie has another dream like the one on the plane, Eddie wants to be there. He wants to say something that doesn’t leave Richie completely beside himself again. He definitely can’t take the guilt of seeing that and knowing he caused it directly, not by dying but by _not _dying – but he _has _to try, for his own sanity if nothing else.

He waits for a while longer, just watching the rise and fall of Richie’s chest under the covers, and then he gradually settles into long, rambling retellings of all the childhood memories he’s finally gotten back. He turns each of them over and over in his mind like they’re worn stones plucked from the edge of a riverbed, like he’s seeing them for the first time despite having had them, buried somewhere far beyond his reach, all his life.

He talks about comic books and bad movies and swimming in the quarry. He talks about long afternoons spent in the clubhouse’s hammock, doing homework and complaining about teachers and making big plans for their lives outside of Derry. Back then, the sky was the limit; they had no way of knowing they’d spend those lives alone with old fears following them like a flock of starving seagulls.

In almost all of his memories – in all his _best _memories – Richie is there.

It’s bittersweet, but if Richie hears any of it, it must do him some good, because he’s – not quite smiling, but almost. There’s no frown on his face this time, at least. Seeing that and managing to convince himself it has something to do with him even soothes some of the jagged, raw edges of Eddie’s own anxiety, because even if it’s not much, it’s _something_.

It’s enough to make him feel real.

-*-

“You should call Bill back, you know,” Eddie starts when Richie emerges from the bedroom the next morning, freshly showered and finally changed into something he didn’t spend six hours wearing on a plane. Eddie’s stretched out on a couch that looks like it just materialized, new and unused, out of the most depressingly generic furniture catalogue imaginable, his feet propped up on Richie’s tiny fucking overnight bag and one hand idly tugging at bits of carpeting below him. Right where he’s been since Richie woke up and he elected to give him a little privacy.

Richie just sighs, which Eddie decides to take as an actual response, because he thinks that’s just about right, anyway. He knows Richie won’t, because when he’d rolled over in bed and immediately looked at his phone, he’d just deleted all the text notifications without even clicking on them. Eddie’d barely had a chance to catch a glimpse of Bill’s name on them over Richie’s shoulder before they vanished from the screen.

“He probably has no idea what he even did,” Eddie says as Richie shuffles past to the kitchen. Eddie gets back to his feet to follow and wonders, not for the first time, if he should take his grimy sneakers off. He’s still a little afraid they’ll dematerialize or something if he does, so he doesn’t. It’s not like they’re leaving a trail of undead, invisible dirt behind them, anyway.

Richie makes no move to pick his phone up when it rings for the first time that morning. He’s halfway through a bowl of cereal, and the sudden vibration against the counter behind them makes both him and Eddie jump.

“Bill, goddammit,” Richie huffs, but he doesn’t sound pissed. Eddie figures he feels bad, but he can guess what’s stopping him from answering.

“You’re brave,” Eddie tells him, eyeing the phone and wishing he could force the issue by mysteriously answering it _for _Richie. He moves over to it and gives the screen a half-hearted prod. Nothing happens, so he just continues, “But you don’t have to tell him. Just say _something_. You guys have to stick together.”

_Losers have to stick together._ The corner of Richie’s mouth quirks up, but his eyes are still sad.

And then the phone starts buzzing again, and this time Richie lets out a reluctant sigh and goes to answer it.

“Hey, Bill,” he says, too casually.

Whatever Bill says back makes Richie wince a little, but he recovers quickly. The sheer determination on his face makes Eddie’s stomach do little flips. “Look, I’m sorry for freaking out last night. It’s – no, it wasn’t anything you said. Or actually, it was, but I’m not – y’know, mad, or anything. It was my fault.”

Eddie leans in just enough to catch the tail end of Bill’s reply, “…talk about?”

Richie’s breath hitches briefly. “No,” he manages, sounding strangled, and quickly follows that up with, “and it’s not you. It’s just… me.” Eddie pats his shoulder comfortingly, and winds up leaving his hand to rest there, for whatever semblance of moral support it provides. Richie’s skin feels so warm even through his T-shirt that Eddie would think he was feverish if he didn’t know better. It’s still a disconcerting thing to notice every time he gets close enough to another person to notice how cold he must be by comparison.

“You never actually answered my question,” Bill says pointedly, breaking Eddie out of his darker thoughts. “Are you okay?” He really just sounds confused, like he doesn’t know what to make of Richie’s evasiveness, or the fact that he’s letting on that there’s anything to evade in the first place.

Richie nods to himself. “I’m okay. About as okay as I can be, anyway.”

“No more nightmares?”

“Wasn’t a nightmare,” Richie reminds him. He’s picking at the edge of his T-shirt, frowning a little. “Actually, last night” – Eddie leans in a little more, hope fluttering in his chest, but then Richie just shakes his head and says – “never mind. What about you, Bill? Having sweet dreams about spider-clowns with knife-legs?”

“Is that what _you_ dreamt about?” Eddie asks, alarmed, but that doesn’t seem right. He’s seen what Richie looks like when he’s having bad dreams – and, man, if he could just beam that sentence back in time to alive-Eddie-from-several-days-ago, what would he have thought? – but he _has _seen, and he’d bet anything that whatever Richie dreamt last night was neutral at worst.

He thinks he has his answer when Bill sighs a little and says, “Yeah, pretty much. I’m glad Audra wasn’t there, but I think I freaked her out a little last night. She wasn’t really… expecting it.”

“Keeping your wife up all night, huh, Bill? Nice,” Richie jokes.

“Seriously, asshole?” Eddie snaps. Of _course _Richie can’t resist being an idiot at the most inopportune times.

Still, the sentence is barely out of his mouth when Richie follows it up with, “She doesn’t get it, right? It’s kinda a ‘you had to be there’ sorta thing.”

“Say that first next time,” Eddie mutters at the same time that Bill says, “Yeah, it kinda is. She’s trying, though. We both are. But it’s good to have all you guys to talk to, too.”

Richie smiles more than a little forlornly. “Any time, Bill. It helps me, too, and I mean that – no more ignoring calls. It totally didn’t help, just for the record.”

Bill laughs softly. “Sure, Rich. Don’t worry about it. I’m just glad I didn’t make anything worse for you.”

Eddie recognizes the shift in Richie’s expression almost before it happens. It clearly takes some effort for him to force out a half-whispered, “You could never.” Eddie gives his shoulder a little squeeze. Richie sniffles, but to Eddie’s relief it looks like there aren’t more tears coming this time. “You and Audra will figure things out,” he says, then, and his voice comes out a lot steadier than he looks. “I don’t even have to wish you luck with that, Bill. You love her, right?”

“Yeah,” Bill says immediately, soft.

“Yeah,” Richie echoes, “so I know you’ll make it work.”

“Thanks, Rich,” Bill says. Eddie thinks there’s a little less tension in his voice than there was before.

“Nice one, dude,” he says, finally withdrawing his hand as Richie and Bill say their goodbyes and hang up. Richie turns back to his now _very _soggy bowl of cereal, sitting down almost mechanically and then poking and prodding at it for long enough that Eddie starts to worry. He only stops and throws out the disgusting-looking leavings when his phone starts buzzing again. Eddie doesn’t recognize the name on the caller ID, but Richie clearly does, because he swears when he sees it.

It becomes obvious pretty quickly that the person on the other end of the line is Richie’s manager.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun dun... (that's the sound of me trying to figure out how to avoid actually having to write any stand-up comedy jokes).


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a side note, but I've noticed a few pretty nasty typos in past chapters (which I've fixed, of course!), which possibly isn't shocking at the rate I've been writing this between work and social stuff, but _still_, the embarrassment is killing me, so I just wanted to put it out there that if anyone happens to notice further glaring errors in this fic I will not be at all offended if you point them out to me!

Richie ends his call with Jason after what feels like an eternity of discussing and coordinating. He feels like he should count himself lucky that he still has a tour to go back to at all, let alone one that’s still due to last another month. His last scheduled date had been cancelled due to “personal reasons,” where personal reasons equaled “going to my previously forgotten hometown to fight a clown monster that terrorized my best friends and I when we were like 13” and also “fine, you know _I _know how much you prefer to keep things private, but next time we need a little more to work with and please don’t make a habit of it” – which is basically Jason-speak for “it’ll take more than an extraterrestrial circus performer to get you out of the rest of these dates.”

Or at least, that’s what Richie likes to assume Jason would have said if he knew enough to. Obviously, Richie hasn’t told Jason about any of that mess, and obviously he never will. It’s not exactly the first or even the last thing he’s had to hide from his manager. It’s just the first one that would make him sound crazy.

He finds his overnight bag sitting at the end of the couch, right where it had landed last night, and forces himself to at least carry it back to the bedroom before he empties its contents all over the bed.

_Eddie would’ve – _but he doesn’t let himself finish the thought, this time. He only has enough room left in his brain for the near-constant background hum of grief right now, so instead of thinking he just mechanically shovels fresh clothes into the bag, probably doing a less than stellar job of ensuring he has enough of everything.

It’s frustrating. He _wants _to go back to his job. It’s _his _job, the one he chose because he’s good at it and it’s fun and, unfortunately, because at some point it also became the easiest, safest mask for him to hide behind. He thinks that’s probably what he’s afraid of – that he’s going to slip back into that routine and never slip back out. He would’ve done it with Bill – pushed him away without even having the decency to tell him why, never given him another chance to see any part of Richie that he doesn’t want seen – if it weren’t for the fact that every fiber of him insists that he needs him, that they all need each other.

Richie takes a break to change into slightly more presentable clothes before he has to sift through the scattered remnants of his impromptu trip to Derry to find his toothbrush and travel-sized shampoo. He considers going back to the kitchen to get a fresh Ziploc for them, but decides against it.

It’s the jokes he doesn’t think he wants to go back to, but then, he’s been making ones just like them his whole life, and his own haven’t exactly been landing great recently, so what difference does it make if he has to tell someone else’s jokes? He can do that. He just can’t have everything he wants. He knows that, has known it all his life. He can have a job he likes and never make it his own. It’s a compromise, just another price to be paid, like so many other little things through the years.

Eddie paid a lot more than that.

Richie stops halfway through shoving another gray button-up into his bag and lets out a ragged breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

He wishes he were a better actor. He wishes he could call Eddie now, just to hear his voice. He focuses hard on the sound of it in his memory and comes up with fragments of last night’s dream instead – really like a greatest hits slideshow of fond memories and things half-forgotten, the kinds of things Eddie would never in a million years have actually said, at least not to Richie.

Richie holds them in his mind against the pull of every regret he’s ever had, and zips his bag shut.

-*-

“Why’d you even come home in the first place, if you were gonna have to leave again this soon?” Eddie scoffs as Richie finishes repacking his bag and makes a beeline for the front door. Eddie follows close on his heels, because he’ll be damned if he’s gonna try to keep himself occupied in an empty apartment for who even knows how long. He hadn’t been listening closely enough to that second call to be sure; he doesn’t even know where they’re going, beyond the fact that it’s probably a decently large city, if it’s for one of Richie’s shows.

Eddie figures he’s not the only one with mixed feelings about it; Richie looks awfully grim for someone on their way to do standup comedy in some big, sold-out theater. He also _doesn’t_ look like he’s about to burst into tears again, though, so Eddie’s only a _little _worried. Or – moderately worried.

“Hope you’re actually feeling up to it,” Eddie says, a little hopelessly, as they make their way toward Richie’s parking spot. “You better at least be planning to rest a _ton _when you’re not working.”

Getting into the car along with Richie proves to be a lot more difficult when there’s no convenient reason for Richie to open any doors but the driver’s. Eddie realizes this with only _just _enough time to dart past Richie and into the driver’s seat, thankful for once that he’s invisible, because it’s fucking _awkward_ and Richie almost sits on him before he manages to maneuver gracelessly over the center console and into the passenger seat.

Just in time for Richie to swing his overnight bag onto Eddie’s lap.

“Jerk,” Eddie snaps, even though it really isn’t his fault and Eddie’s just a _little _humiliated in spite of the fact that Richie definitely didn’t see a bit of that; if he could’ve, he’d probably spend days making fun of Eddie for it, and Eddie would be overjoyed. He misses the teasing; he misses everything.

“Guess that part’s a little worse for you,” Eddie thinks aloud, considering Richie in between furtive glances out the window at passing buildings and midday traffic. “At least I can see you. I know you’re here. And you’re going to work already, which is good. I hope,” and he frowns. Most people would take some time off after losing a – a friend, wouldn’t they? More than just a few days?

He guesses it _would_ be pretty hard to explain, though – the whole thing, not _just _Eddie – and it can’t be easy being a minor celebrity when it comes to keeping tour dates and stuff like that. But they could’ve just refunded the tickets, couldn’t they? People get sick and injured all the time; there’s no way it’s always possible to avoid cancelling things. He tries to remember if he overheard Richie at least _ask_ about it during that call. He’s pretty sure he didn’t.

“You could at least take a break after this,” he tries, but he wonders if that’s presumptuous of him. Richie might be doing a lot better by the time he’s done with however many shows he has left. He already seems a little better, or at least more composed. It _really _doesn’t seem like Richie to get nervous before performances, but after everything that’s happened and everything he’s remembered inside of a week, anyone would be off their game.

Maybe working is the distraction he needs. Eddie hopes Richie knows better than he does what’s best for him. And that he’ll actually do it.

He _has _to move on, eventually, whether he forgets or not. “You’ve got your whole life ahead of you,” Eddie tells Richie as they pull to a stop in the airport’s long-term parking lot. The reminder makes Eddie more than a little jealous. He can’t deny that, but he also knows he’d never in a million years trade places with Richie – with anyone, really, but _definitely _not with Richie. “Couldn’t do this to you,” Eddie explains to Richie, who’s busy thumbing at his phone screen, apparently looking for details on whatever flight he’s supposed to be catching. “You fucking never shut up, it’d kill you.”

Richie’s eyes light up a little, the way they always do when he’s ready to fire back, usually at Eddie, with some not-that-clever retort, and he even starts to open his mouth to say something. Eddie turns in his seat, eyes wide, but then Richie’s mouth snaps shut and he just looks… confused.

“The fuck is wrong with me…”

“Rich,” Eddie says, feeling somehow breathless, “you’re gonna be the death of me.” He reaches over and waves a hand in front of Richie’s face, but Richie doesn’t bat it away or flinch or even blink. “Did you hear me or didn’t you, asshole?”

Didn’t, apparently. Richie leans into Eddie’s hand until his forehead brushes Eddie’s fingertips, and for a moment Eddie’s whole train of thought stutters to a halt. It takes longer than he’d like to start up again even when it becomes painfully clear that Richie was just trying to get his bag off what he clearly sees as an empty seat, and – “Fuck,” Eddie manages, scrambling back out of the car after Richie and ducking under his arm before he slams the door behind them both.

The whole episode earns Richie a virtually endless stream of unheard complaining, which only gets that much more heated when Eddie learns that they’re going to fucking _Reno_, and that the tiny plane is fully booked this time, which means he can either sit on Richie’s lap – _not _happening – or stand awkwardly by the restrooms at the front of the plane for an hour and a half.

“Your show better be hilarious,” he gripes for the millionth time about halfway through that hour and a half. “Funny enough to wake the dead. Seriously, or I swear I’ll figure out how to pick things up and the first thing I’ll do is start throwing stuff.”

-*-

Richie manages not to fall asleep during this flight, although his whole body is definitely protesting by the end of his second stint on a plane in one 24-hour period. It’s definitely a relief when he’s promptly picked up at the airport and driven to a hotel near the venue. He even winds up with plenty of time to spare before he has to be down there, despite a second call from Jason that lasts only slightly less time than the first one had.

The guy’s not usually this jittery before shows, but Richie can’t entirely blame him, after what happened the last time.

Richie doesn’t think _that’ll_ happen again, unless he’s about to get a call from another long lost best friend about a killer mime in fucking Michigan or something. He’s a lot more worried about losing his composure in the middle of his act, so just to reassure himself – and as a favor to his poor manager – he takes the time to run through the script alone in his hotel room. He remembers all of it fine, and more importantly, none of it just so happens to remind him of Eddie.

He shouldn’t be surprised; there’s virtually nothing of Richie in these jokes. Nothing personal. Even if there had been, it wouldn’t have had anything to do with Eddie, or rather with the man he’s always thought he must love but could never really remember. He doesn’t even have to _try_ to distance himself from jokes about girlfriends and easy, casual sex with women. Slip the mask on, focus on going through the motions –

_– Eddie would hate this –_

– and no one will ever be able to guess there’s anything up with him.

He’s good at that.

He spends the remainder of his free time trying and failing to walk off the feeling of being trapped in an ill-fitting cage. Like every lie he’s ever told about himself is trying to crawl back down his throat and strangle the life out of him.

-*-

The first and last time Eddie happened to catch a portion of one of Richie’s shows on TV, he’d been channel-surfing on a weekend – or maybe one evening after work? He doesn’t remember much about it, anymore, except that he’d paused on that channel only because he’d caught it on a close-up of Richie’s face and instantly felt his grip on the remote loosen, like that was a reflex he didn’t know he had. He remembers thinking he’d seen that face somewhere before – which he’d thought was weird at the time, given that he’s _never_ cared much for standup comedy and doesn’t exactly make a habit of watching it in his free time.

What seems weirder to Eddie now is that he’d still been able to dismiss that feeling all too easily as pure coincidence. Must have clicked past one of his shows before, or seen him on the cover of some magazine. The memory of it faded quickly and completely, like everything else about Richie Tozier and Derry and the first seventeen years of Eddie’s life, and it only came rushing back to Eddie the second Richie admitted to not writing his own material that night at the restaurant.

Because, really, it was obvious then and it’s obvious now: those jokes aren’t authentically _him_. The only thing that’s changed between then and now is that Eddie can tell Richie’s less comfortable with the artificiality of it – or _something_, Eddie’s not sure. He just knows something’s wrong, and that watching Richie wrap up his practice and start pacing around his hotel room like a trapped animal is making his own stomach twist in sympathy.

“You could write your own jokes,” Eddie says, “but then again – dunno if that’d be a lot different.” It’s not that he can’t imagine Richie cracking jokes that _don’t_ seem like they’re meant to disguise something or other – they’re not all like that, after all, never were – but he’s always done it, and a lot. Eddie’s pretty sure everyone in the Losers’ Club knows that, even if they don’t always know what or why he’s hiding.

Richie’s always been funny, too, but Eddie thinks that might just be him, or Richie’s talent for good delivery. “Maybe it’s just ‘cause you’re so annoying,” he thinks aloud, knowing it’d sound like a very mean non sequitur and _definitely _not helpful if Richie could actually hear him.

Eddie _wishes_ he could hear him. He’s one of only five people who’d probably be able cheer Richie up right now, and the only one who’s actually here to know Richie’s hurting in the first place.

As useless as it makes him feel, the most he can actually do is keep up a semi-constant stream of bland observations, jokes, reassurances – anything he can think of to fill the silence – out of some tiny, probably futile hope that even a word of it will worm its way into Richie’s subconscious and make him feel better.

More for his own peace of mind than for Richie’s, Eddie also trails along behind Richie when he leaves the hotel for a meandering walk that ultimately leads them to what Eddie can only assume is tonight’s venue. The flashy façade of the building has a giant, backlit marquee with Richie’s full name prominently displayed in between the words “TONIGHT” and “SOLD OUT,” so it seems like a pretty fair assumption.

“Jeez, it’s huge,” Eddie mutters when he sees it, half impressed and half nervous on Richie’s behalf. He realizes then that he’s fallen behind and has to jog a ways to catch up with Richie, at which point he elbows him lightly in the ribs and says, “Clearly _someone’s _a big deal.”

Richie, for his part, just hunches a little further in on himself and makes a beeline for the backstage entrance, looking entirely unimpressed by the whole affair. Eddie tries not to let that bother him; maybe stuff like this just starts to lose some of its novelty after so many years of doing it.

It’s hard to imagine that, though, because for the next several hours he can’t bring himself to leave Richie’s side, if for no other reason than that everything backstage is overwhelming, dubiously-organized chaos and he’s pretty sure he’d lose Richie if he let him out of his sight for too long – and that’s in spite of the fact that he has a private dressing room all to himself.

He finally gets to meet Richie’s manager, one-sided though it may be. The first words out of his mouth when he sees Richie are, “Wow, you look… terrible.”

Eddie knows how Richie would respond if _he_ said that to him, which he admittedly probably would – ‘yeah, Eds, because your mom kept me up so late last night’ or ‘not as terrible as you, dude’ or ‘ that’s because I just walked in here and saw _you_’ – but Richie doesn’t say any of that. Instead, he keeps his tone lightly humorous and a lot more polite than Eddie is used to hearing it and says, “Wow, thanks, Jason, great pep talk,” which is how Eddie actually realizes that he’s Richie’s manager. It’s also how he decides that he doesn’t like the guy.

“He looks fine,” Eddie grouches as Jason launches into what Eddie assumes is meant to be an actual pep talk but is actually just a lot of pressure he doesn’t think Richie needs right now – which he _also_ says, just to get a little more of the irritation out of his system. Richie can’t hear him sticking up for him and doesn’t look particularly wounded regardless, but Eddie can’t leave it alone. This guy can actually fucking talk to Richie, and he’s wasting it putting more on Richie’s shoulders than he already has to deal with.

Richie _does _look fine, at least _considering_. He looks… healthy, Eddie’s brain supplies for him. He looks healthy, if not exactly happy. But that’s not the kind of thing you just point out to someone, especially if that someone isn’t even a close friend.

He doesn’t follow Richie onstage what feels like hours of prep and manager-mandated grooming later, though he does linger just behind the curtain to watch. After the first twenty minutes or so, he reluctantly lets himself relax enough to gingerly lean against the bright red sheet of fabric – which doesn’t give even slightly under his full weight – with his arms crossed over the gory mess of his chest.

Eddie still likes it better when he doesn’t have to see it, even out of the corners of his eyes.

The performance goes about as smoothly as it did back at the hotel. No one seems to notice anything so off about Richie’s mood that they can’t overlook it – including Jason, who stands several paces behind Eddie for the entirety of the show, looking increasingly pleased in a way that _really _gets under Eddie’s skin. Like he’s more relieved about the state of the show itself than he is about Richie.

Not that there’s a lot to actually be relieved about, as far as Richie’s wellbeing is concerned. Eddie knows that even before Richie’s wrapped up his last punch line. He can hear it in the practiced tone Richie uses to thank the audience, can see it in the way he carefully keeps his pace slow and easy until he’s backstage, where he lets Jason pat him on the back and cheerily tell him the rest of the tour will be a breeze if he keeps this up. The smile on Richie’s face is too stiff when he replies, “‘Course it will.” Eddie’s pretty sure he’s the only person backstage who notices Richie repeatedly forget to relax his shoulders and keep his breathing slow, only to remember and quickly force himself to do it after a few moments.

Until, finally, he’s able to escape back to his private dressing room.

Eddie catches Richie’s hand in his own on the way, letting himself be pulled along after him and _aching _for his friend, for the way he locks the door behind them with trembling fingers – Eddie lets go, then, and lets his own hand fall uselessly back to his side – and collapses into the first chair he lays eyes on.

Richie manages to muffle most of his crying with one fist pressed to his mouth and the other clenched tightly in his lap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I'm not totally pleased with this chapter, which is definitely largely because I (obviously) don't actually know anything about how being a standup comedian (or any kind of performer) actually works. At the risk of changing the pacing of this fic a noticeable amount, I daresay I'm not going to painstakingly cover that entire month's worth of touring in coming chapters.
> 
> Also - I'm removing this fic from the "IT - Stephen King" tag and leaving it in the movies-only tag because, obviously, this is based on movie canon. I haven't actually read the book. I did recently purchase it and _maybe just maybe_ intend to include tiny details I'm aware of from it, but, for example: I named Richie's manager Jason after 1) the actor who plays him in the movies and 2) Jason Voorhees, yes, I'm sorry, and am basing all of his characterization on 1) whatever I want and 2) the like maybe 20 seconds he was actually in the movie. I assume he also makes an appearance in the book and may even have a canon name, but I wouldn't know! My city now.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [leans in so close that my lips touch the microphone] I hope you like this one

Richie’s barely had enough time to make himself look less like he just spent the better part of an hour crying alone when his manager practically ambushes him right outside his dressing room. He wants Richie to join some of the crew for a late dinner and drinks, “Because you deserve to celebrate, _and _no offense but you still really look like you could use a night out, you know, relax? You never know, you might meet a nice” – but before he can finish, Richie’s already on his way out of the building. He thinks he might actually start screaming if he lets Jason finish that sentence, and he’s working with the last dregs of his energy reserves just trying to _look_ like he has everything together when he really, _really _doesn’t. Dinner conversation is _way _beyond him, and he doesn’t even wanna know what he’d be like drunk when every other thought in his head is about Eddie.

“Thanks, but all this traveling’s still kicking my ass,” he calls over his shoulder, and then, on impulse and because some _stupid _part of him that never learns a lesson thinks it’ll make him feel better, “Surely the ladies can wait ‘til tomorrow night?”

He blinks away the threat of new tears and barely registers Jason’s response – reluctant acquiescence, he thinks. A thinly veiled promise to make _sure _Richie joins them tomorrow, before they have to head off to the next city. He doesn’t even remember what the next city _is _right now.

By the time he makes it to his hotel room, his hands are shaking so badly it takes him several tries to find Beverly’s number in his phone, and several more to actually dial it. He doesn’t know what he wants to say to her until he hears the click of someone answering, and then the words rush out of him all at once before he can even think to stop them.

“I – I loved him. I loved him for more than 27 _fucking _years, and I still love him and I don’t know how to – to stop” –

“Uh – Richie?”

It’s not Beverly’s voice on the other end of the line; it’s Ben’s.

He feels like someone’s just driven an ice-cold knife straight into his gut; he doesn’t even make it to the toilet before he loses the entire contents of his stomach – not much, he notices distantly, _when was the last time I even ate a meal _– all over the floor. He’s such a fucking idiot. For not at least letting the person answering the phone say “hello” before spilling his fucking guts. For spilling his fucking guts in the first place. _Literally_, he thinks without a trace of humor.

He can still hear Ben, obviously alarmed and getting louder even through the pounding of his own pulse in his ears. He doesn’t remember dropping his phone, but it’s slid just out of his reach. He doesn’t remember collapsing to his knees, either.

He thinks he’s crying, or hyperventilating, or both, and it doesn’t stop until Ben’s voice cuts out and Richie’s phone starts ringing again.

He has to fix it. He has to tell him it was a joke or he didn’t mean it like that, that he’d never disrespect Eddie like that, _ever_, and this time it’s _those_ words that are on the tip of his tongue when he sees Beverly’s name on the caller ID and just barely manages to answer the call before it times out.

“Oh, thank god,” he hears her breathe. “Richie? What happened? Is everything okay?”

He opens his mouth and finds that he can’t make himself answer her. All that comes out is a terrified sob. He hears Ben say something in the background and has to literally swallow another round of puke, which at least gets a disgusted “ugh” out of him.

“Hey,” she says, gentle like she’s talking to a fucking kid. “I’m sorry. I was in the shower and Ben happened to see it was you calling. He didn’t want to just leave you hanging.”

If the situation were different, Richie thinks he’d probably crack a joke about that, just to tease, but instead all he manages, finally, is a small, “Not his fault. I shouldn’t’ve… I – I don’t know why I did that.”

“Did what?” He can practically _hear _her looking at Ben for answers. There’s a beat of uncomfortable silence, and then Ben is talking to him.

“So,” he says lightly, “obviously that wasn’t meant for me.”

“Nope,” Richie says, a little too sharply. “No. If you could just – forget I fucking said anything. It wasn’t…”

Tell him you didn’t mean it, that knife-edged voice in the back of his head demands. Tell him it was just a joke.

He _can’t._

Beverly, again, but her voice sounds a little distant, like they’ve switched him to speakerphone. The thought makes his stomach feel like it’s full of carnivorous butterflies. He hopes, irrationally, that his friends are somewhere really remote, like literally on a boat, alone, in the middle of the fucking ocean – but with cell reception, somehow. Or maybe just surrounded by really thick walls.

She says, “It’s about Eddie, isn’t it,” and it isn’t a question and Richie’s whole train of thought grinds to a screeching halt again. Richie just lets himself cry when the tears start welling up again because at this point, fuck it, it’s not like they haven’t heard way worse just in the last few minutes.

It takes him a long time to finally whisper, “Yeah,” and the admission loosens something in his chest. Enough so that when Ben asks if he wants to talk about it, he tucks himself into the space between the bathtub and the toilet and says, “No, but – think I need to.”

“Okay,” Ben says. “Can we do anything to make it easier?”

Richie laughs. It’s so rough it doesn’t even really sound like laughter at all, but neither of them comments on it, which he’s grateful for. “No. I don’t even think that’s possible. It just – it started to feel like too much.” Just getting that much out makes him grip the phone so tightly he thinks he might actually break it, but Ben and Bev clearly don’t know what to make of that statement, so he tries to explain. “I mean, _before _– I knew I was” – and he can’t say it, he can’t, so he just says, “I knew,” and lets the sentence dangle for a moment, half hoping they won’t understand that, either, and mostly knowing they probably will. He feels sick, so he squeezes his eyes shut and focuses on getting the words out. “But I remember _him_ now, too. It doesn’t – it feels wrong to just go on acting like that didn’t matter”—

– and his words come faster and less coherent the more he starts to panic again –

–“I mean obviously I know Eddie would’ve” – he licks at his lower lip – “I know it’s wrong to – that I – that he was my friend and I thought of him like”—

“I’m gonna stop you right there,” Ben says at the same time as Beverly says, “No, it isn’t.”

“She’s right,” Ben finishes, sounding pained. “You loved someone for 27 years without even remembering who he was. That’s not _wrong. _I know I don’t know everything, or even all that much, about what it was like for you, but I know it’s hard to feel that and never believe it’ll amount to anything”—

“Yeah, well, it didn’t,” Richie says without really thinking.

Neither Ben nor Beverly responds to that right away, and Richie just lets that silence stretch between them. What is there to say, really? They all know Eddie never felt that way about Richie. They all know Richie never would have told him, because he’s a coward and all it would’ve done is make Eddie uncomfortable, anyway. He doesn’t think he regrets that. Maybe he would’ve wound up curled up on this bathroom floor crying his stupid heart out one way or another, but it would’ve hurt less to know Eddie was out there living the life he deserved.

Finally, Beverly murmurs, “You both deserved better,” which makes Richie wonder, briefly and irrationally, if she’d somehow managed to overhear his thoughts.

“Yeah, well,” he repeats, rubbing absently at his forehead, where a nasty headache is starting to build, “Eddie did, anyway.”

“Rich”—

“Don’t,” he mutters. “I’m fine. I’m just – fucking making it about me, I guess. At least I’m working, even if it’s”—

“You’re _working_?” Beverly interrupts in obvious surprise.

“…Yes? You know I was on tour before all this, right? I’m supposed to –”

“Richie, it hasn’t even been a week,” Ben says.

“_Bill’s_ working,” Richie points out, falling back on stubbornness because he doesn’t know what to make of his friends reacting to this like he’s just casually told them his puppy got run over. “How is this a bigger surprise than what I said before?”

“It’s not,” Ben says, which – is a little more honesty than Richie wanted, even if it’s not ill-intentioned. “But you don’t sound like you’re doing great”—

“Which is fine,” Beverly emphasizes.

“It would be weirder if you were,” Ben agrees. “You know you can take time off, right? Most people would. Bev and I are.”

“Come on,” Richie says, “and do what? Sit around my apartment pining for Eds all day? Take up knitting?”

“Or take a trip somewhere,” Beverly says with more patience than Richie thinks he’s really earned.

“Technically I am, because that’s kind of how touring works,” he argues, anyway.

“Beep beep, Richie,” she says, finally exasperated.

Richie glares tiredly at a spot on the side of the bathtub and tries to at least give them a real answer. “I really don’t think it’d help,” he mutters. “I can’t stop thinking about him. And what happened. At least this is a distraction.”

“Yeah, dude, a distraction that makes you fucking _miserable_. What’s even the fucking point of that?”

“What?” Richie manages, half-stunned. That voice wasn’t –

“Not all distractions are good distractions,” Beverly says. “If one night’s already got you this stressed out”—

“Wha… what did you say?” Richie tries again. His mouth’s gone dry and his heart’s hammering away in his chest and he doesn’t even really know _why, _but this feels… important.

Beverly sounds worried again. “Um. That not all”—

“No, before that,” Richie says, “like – like that it’s making me miserable?”

He could _swear _he hears a sharp inhale, or the tail end of some word, but it’s not coming from the phone, and he thinks, _Please_, and he doesn’t know why he thinks that or why there are goosebumps spreading up both his arms. The bathroom looks all wrong, like there’s something really off about it and he can’t tell what, and he can’t pinpoint _when_ it started to look like that, just that it does. It’s like he’s looking at one of those puzzles they put in activity books and magazines for kids, _spot the difference_ or whatever.

But he can’t spot any difference, and there’s nothing that doesn’t look like it belongs, and Ben is asking Beverly something but he can’t make out the words, and he feels like he’s floating and then suddenly all of it _snaps _back into place almost painfully. It’s so abrupt that he has to blink several times just to ground himself.

“Ugh,” he gasps, disoriented and maybe a little dizzy. He thinks his nose is bleeding, but when he touches it his hand comes away clean. “That was fucking weird.”

“What happened? _Richie? _Are you okay?”

“I think I should… go,” he says, and experimentally forces himself a little more upright. He doesn’t _think _he’s about to pass out, _or _throw up again, but his headache’s gotten a lot worse. “Think I’m getting a migraine or something.”

“But did something _happen_,” Beverly insists.

“I don’t know,” Richie says. “Honestly. I thought I heard” – but he can’t say _Eddie, _because it isn’t possible and he really doesn’t want them to think he’s gone off the deep end, on top of everything else, so he just says – “something. You were probably right, okay? It’s been a long day.”

Beverly sounds like she wants to ask him a lot more questions, but all she actually says, very hesitantly, is, “Okay… But if you’re not going to take a break, _yet_,” she says very pointedly, “will you at least promise to talk to us?”

“All of us,” Ben adds. “Every day, okay? It doesn’t have to be about being gay”—

“Okay, no, please don’t – actually say that,” Richie groans. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, okay, but that’s _all _I’m saying. This is all about five hundred percent more than I ever planned on saying out loud to _anyone_,_ ever_, just so you know. You might ‘s well have just seen fucking Mothman.”

Ben huffs a laugh, but he sounds pretty serious when he says, “Sorry about that.”

“Don’t apologize, man,” Richie says, “I… I trust you guys. You’re the only two people I’ve ever told”—

_– “three” – _no, he definitely imagined that –

“And I only threw up, like, one and a half times, so I guess it went pretty well. But also, the food is crazy expensive in the big city, so I don’t think I can _afford _to do this again too soon. Gotta keep at least some of that shit down, or it’s just not cost effective.”

He’s actually proud of that, he realizes with a rush. Not the joke, obviously – just of the fact that he told someone, and, nervous puking aside, it didn’t cost him a damn thing – least of all his friends, who are both laughing at his stupid joke in a way that sounds suspiciously fond.

He’s so fucking lucky to have them.

“I promise, though,” he says after a beat. “We’ll talk. Mike and Bill, too, obviously.

“And – thank you.”

-*-

Eddie is pretty sure he’d be having a fucking asthma attack if his lungs still_ worked, _or _didn’t _work, they way they’re supposed to – no, he’d have already had several and he’d probably be on the floor in a puddle of Richie’s fucking vomit at this point. Maybe he’d be better off there than begging and pleading with Richie and Beverly and Ben and _anything and anyone _that could be listening. No one ever hears him, and his throat never goes raw from the strain of it. He could do it for years, crying tears that don’t exist and trying to bargain with the laws of reality itself and it would never _fucking amount to anything_, just like Ben said.

_But he _heard _me, _he thinks, and the razor-sharp edge he’s riding between hope and hopelessness is cutting him _deep._

_He was looking for me_, he pleads with no one. _He was looking for me and he didn’t even know._

Richie goes to bed and doesn’t sleep. Eddie stays in the bathroom and doesn’t sleep.

He tries to remember what it felt like, but every time he thinks he can imagine it, it slips through his fingers like blood in murky water. He stares long and hard at his reflection in the mirror – just an eerie shape, pale with dark splotches, drifting in and out of focus in the darkness – and runs his hands over and over the injuries that made all of this happen in the first place. He wishes he could make them go the fuck away, _yearns _to see them vanish beneath his palms, craves clean clothes and a shower and to be _touched_ and _felt_.

He wants to believe Richie will manage it. He wants to tell Richie he’s wrong, but not like he thinks he is, and that he’s so proud of him it almost makes the dead parts of him feel alive. He wants to do little things like clean up the bathroom floor and bring Richie a glass of water and hold him still through the tossing and turning and nightmares.

Eddie doesn’t know how long he stands there wanting and wanting and feeling the fear of it open like a yawning grave inside of him, but he knows that when Richie wakes from a short-lived nightmare with a sharp cry, he goes to him, and he stays, and he tries with everything he has to soothe him with stupid little gestures and whispered reassurances.

And he says, “I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Figured I oughta go ahead and post this before I head in for a long closing shift at work tonight; I could definitely have gone longer on this chapter, but splitting it up into two seems better, given how long it's already gotten.
> 
> Also, a special shout out to "I Will" by Mitski for giving me a lot of Feelings while writing these last two chapters. <strike>Actually I have an entire playlist I've put together specifically for working on this fic.</strike>

Eddie stays with Richie at night when he sleeps – or when he tries to, or when he doesn’t, when he just lies in bed and lets himself cry like he’s making up for a whole day’s worth of tears.

Sometimes, Eddie lets himself run his hands through Richie’s hair; it’s a temptation he can’t quite kick, but it never takes long for the uncanny effect of the gesture to make him pull his hands back and tuck them into the pockets of his badly disheveled jacket. He can feel things like _warm _and _soft _and he can wonder at the fact that the scent of the shampoo Richie uses changes with each hotel he happens to stay at – “What was the point of packing travel-sized shampoo if you weren’t even going to use it, dipshit?” – but no matter how hard he tries, he can’t ever get even a single strand to actually move.

He almost always talks to Richie – about his own version of their day, about his thoughts on Richie’s diet and his jerk of a manager and everything the other Losers are getting up to – and when all else fails, he holds one hand over Richie’s chest and narrows his focus down to the slow rhythm of it.

It grounds him.

It becomes a habit. It becomes _routine_, and routine becomes one of the very few things Eddie can rely on for some kind of stability whenever he starts to feel the desolation of his situation creep up on him from the well of fear that’s always lurking in the back of his mind. There are moments when his own body feels like some kind of violation and the _wrongness_ of it makes him feel the closest thing to real, physical pain he thinks he’s still capable of. It’s the one thing he can’t escape in a world where nothing and no one can hold him. He never could have imagined how deeply unnerving it would be to be so completely disconnected from the world and everyone in it that you begin to question whether you really even exist at all – but then, he never could have imagined anything like it was _possible_, either.

There are days when he wishes it _wasn’t_ possible; it might even be _most _days, as more and more of them pass with no sign of Richie taking any more notice of Eddie’s presence than anyone else does. It only takes a week for Eddie to start trying _not _to think about what he’ll do if that ever changes; he can’t bear to hope for anything more, and so in classic Eddie Kaspbrak fashion he does his best to settle for what he _has._

-*-

The Losers make good on their promise to talk every day, and since there are s– since there are five of them, that usually means more than one call a day. It only takes a day or two of Richie finding moments to slip away to accept calls – or make them, when things get really rough – for his coworkers to start taking notice, though most of them limit their curiosity to prying looks and whispers pitched low enough that Richie can’t make out exactly what they’re saying. That’s probably for the best, but every time he catches someone looking away the second his eyes meet theirs – every time he thinks he overhears fragments of conversations that could be about him, his heart gives a painful thud or his chest gets too tight or he has to ride out a sudden surge of adrenaline.

It’s exhausting, but it’s not enough to make him seriously consider curbing the amount of time he spends on the phone with his friends. He’s pretty sure they’re the only reason he’s still pressing on through a job that felt so much _easier _before. He’s supposed to _like _it, but every day – hell, sometimes every _hour – _makes him feel like a bowstring getting drawn tighter and tighter, until it’s just on the verge of breaking.

He’s _supposed_ to do a lot of things.

Even Jason seems interested in what he’s up to. Richie’s pretty sure that’s mostly just because the phone call that started it all _also_ prompted him to drop everything and miss a gig to go to some backwater town in Maine; Jason’s never taken any real interest in Richie’s personal life beyond what he deems applicable to the job, networking, whatever, and that’s how Richie prefers it.

That’s probably why he’s so caught off guard when, something like five or six days after that first day back on the job, Jason walks up to him just as he’s finishing up a call with Bill and asks, oh-so-casually, “So, I have to ask, who’s the lucky lady?”

Richie stares at him for a beat too long. His stupid brain doesn’t want to let go of the brief calm he gets from talking to the other Losers, so it takes him a moment to unfurrow his brow and by then it’s too late to remember to keep the panic off his face.

“It’s – uh – it’s really not” – _for the love of God, Tozier, say fucking _something –

“Trying to keep it casual, huh?” his manager laughs, totally unperturbed. “I can respect that. Did you meet her in – uh, was it Maine? Maine, right?”

“Yeah, Maine,” Richie says tonelessly while he flip-flops dizzyingly between numb confusion and the desperate urge to deny everything. He’s too overwhelmed to decide whether that’s because Jason’s too close to the truth, or too far from it.

The decision is made for him when Jason gives him a pat on the back he’s pretty sure is meant to be congratulatory, warns him a little pointedly that he’s due on stage in ten minutes, and promptly walks away.

It’s not even close to enough time to get his emotions back under control, and while he doesn’t exactly _bomb _this one, it’s definitely not a strong showing.

On the bright side, that’s the first _and _last time Jason asks him about his supposed girlfriend.

-*-

The nightmares don’t stop. After another interminable week of restless sleep and constant obligations, Richie starts to wonder if his body will give out before his will does.

“Why am I doing this,” he whines at another in a long line of unfamiliar hotel room ceilings, still too wired from the trip up here and he-doesn’t-fucking-remember how many shots of espresso to even _think_ about sleeping.

“Not out of a great love for the art, apparently,” Mike says, sounding amused – and weirdly alert for someone who’s still up at…

“…What time is it there, again?” Richie can’t keep the time zones straight in his head. He pretty much gave up like three shows ago, because they keep crossing from Mountain to Pacific and back again, and he can never remember if the difference between whatever city he happens to be in and Florida is two hours or three.

“Almost four,” Mike says nonchalantly.

“Mike. Dude. That’s so late,” Richie says, but there’s no heat in it. Eddie would’ve chewed the both of them out for still being up at this hour – _either _hour – and he would’ve actually meant it. Richie almost says so, but he stops himself. He’s _trying _not to ruminate so much, or at least to not let the other Losers know he’s ruminating so much, because he’s pretty sure they’re extra worried about him in particular and he hates that he’s still the biggest mess of the group. He thinks Mike can hear the omission in his voice, anyway, when he adds, “And it _is _an art, thank you _very_ much. I’m just – tired.”

He doesn’t try to insist that he loves it. He thinks he still does, but the feeling keeps getting lost in the midst of… everything else.

Mike just sighs, but it’s a commiserating kind of sigh. There are some things that none of them have to actually say for the others to just _know_. Like that they’ll miss Stan and Eddie – forever, Richie thinks, but maybe one day it’ll be just an ache and not the awful, never-ending gut-punch it is now. Or that they’ll have nightmares for years, probably, but they’ll get easier and fewer and further between, and for a long time they’ll probably also jump at things that aren’t there. At least there won’t _actually _be anything, right? Richie knows he’s managed to startle himself a tiny handful of times lately, walking in crowded, busy, _loud _places and thinking for just an instant that there was someone walking beside him – a crunch of gravel, an exhalation that didn’t come from him – but a sidelong glance always reveals nothing but empty air, and the startled jolt of his frayed nerves dies before it ever fully materializes.

“So,” Richie says, abruptly trying to lift both their moods despite the weight that tugs at him whenever he thinks for too long about all the things that aren’t there. Letting thoughts like that go uninterrupted doesn’t usually pan out so well for him. “Ever hear back from that last interview? Bet they loved you, right?”

He can practically _hear _Mike perk up, and fuck if that isn’t enough to put a smile on his own face. “Yes! They actually called me back a lot sooner than they said they would, and – well, the pay’s not as high as it could be because I don’t have my master’s yet”—

“Library science?” Richie recalls.

“Oh, I thought we were calling it library ‘engineering’,” Mike laughs, “or was it ‘technology’?”

Okay, so maybe it’d taken Richie a try or two to remember the right phrase. He knows what it _means_, mostly, but only because he’d googled it the first time Mike mentioned it and come up with a whole bullet-pointed list of things he recognized as interests Mike totally _would _have, because his friends are all a bunch of nerds. “All those words mean _basically _the same thing,” he says, only a little defensively.

“Yeah, you’re basically a walking thesaurus,” Mike says – and Richie can’t help but think it doesn’t sound right, like it’s just this side of too good-natured, because Eddie would’ve put more bite into it, and he would’ve – _Not now, _he tries to snap at himself, but the déjà vu has already sent an unexpected pang of yearning coursing straight through him, and on its heels, that goddamn suffocating grief he still hasn’t managed to get used to.

He guesses if it were comfortable, it wouldn’t be the kind of thing people go to therapy about.

He knows Mike notices the change in him even though he manages to keep his voice _and _stupid wisecracks steady for the rest of their conversation. If it’d been Jason – or anyone but the Losers, really – he thinks he could’ve kept it undetectable, but the veneer’s cracking even there and he thinks, _God I need –_

But he can’t finish the sentence.

-*-

It terrifies Eddie that he didn’t see it coming, that first morning Richie wakes up even more bleary-eyed than usual and literally _stumbles _into the bathroom for a plastic hotel cup of water. It terrifies him that he can’t pin down why Richie seems to have a hard time actually swallowing, and then it hits him and he claps a hand to Richie’s forehead. He feels warm, but Richie always feels absurdly warm to Eddie these days; it’s the clammy, sweaty feeling that confirms his suspicions.

“Dammit, Rich,” he says, “I fucking told you you were running yourself into the ground.” Lots of times, in fact.

“Might wind up taking that break, after all,” Richie rasps experimentally to himself. He sounds _awful_ and even winces a little bit trying to get the words out. It makes something in Eddie’s chest clench in sympathy.

He also sounds a little hopeful, which hurts in an altogether different way.

“Usually people want colds to get better, not worse,” Eddie reminds him softly. “You should get someone to bring you some medicine.” He takes a half step back out of the bathroom and glances around the room until his eyes light on what he’s looking for: a little black tray on the counter with several little packets of tea and a coffee machine packed into it. “It’d be better with some honey, but you could try that, too.”

Richie probably wouldn’t take that advice even if he could hear it, so Eddie is mostly able to ignore the twinge of discouragement he feels when Richie just sighs and brushes past him to gather up some clothes before heading back in for a shower. _At least the steam might help a little,_ Eddie thinks bitterly. He lingers by the bathroom door for a while, trying not to flinch every time he hears Richie cough. He sounds miserable, and Eddie doubts he’s about to spend the day focusing on getting _better_. The way he’s been going, he’ll probably only actually take that break if and when someone else _makes _him.

Eddie has a sneaking suspicion that his manager won’t be the one who makes him, fever or no fever.

After a while, Eddie’s gaze drifts back to the little paper packets of tea near the other end of the room. They might as well be on the other side of the _country_, but his fingers are just about twitching with nervous energy, so he finally wanders over to the combined TV-stand-and-beverage-station and reads over the labels on the packets in a halfhearted effort to dispel the useless feeling he gets every time he sees Richie hurting.

It turns out that whoever last cleaned this room didn’t do a very good job of organizing the tea after the last guest; Eddie can see different colors of packets peaking out from behind mismatched rows of other flavors. He can’t even read all of them, although he’s pretty sure there’s a line of something with chamomile in it sitting just behind the earl grey.

He sighs, thoroughly irritable now, and thumbs at one of the offending tea packets.

He almost leaps back when the paper bends slightly beneath his touch.

“Shit,” he gasps. “Oh my god – Richie” – and he takes one or two halting steps back in the direction of the bathroom – “hey, can you – can you hear me?”

No response – just a sneeze followed by another short sigh.

Eddie lets himself hope, anyway – _just this once, it’s been fucking weeks, just this once – _and rushes to the bathroom door. He almost goes for the doorknob before thinking better of it and just bringing his palm down flat against the door with all the force he can muster.

That might have been even worse than just barging right in on Richie, though, because the noise it makes is loud enough to startle even Eddie, and that in spite of the fact that it’s the _intended _effect. The boom of his – does it count as knocking? – is immediately followed by a loud clatter from inside the bathroom – probably Richie dropping whatever sample-size soap bottle he’d been about to use – and a painful-sounding yelp.

_Way to fucking go_, Eddie thinks reproachfully to himself, but that’s _all_ he has time to think before the bathroom door swings open and he’s suddenly face to face with Richie, who’s holding a hastily-grabbed towel awkwardly around his waist with one hand. His eyes are wide and his breath is coming fast, which looks like it hurts Richie’s throat at least as much as the water had earlier.

His voice sounds only marginally better when he calls, shakily, “Is anyone there?”

“It’s just me, Rich,” Eddie answers, but he can feel the excitement of the moment draining steadily from him; Richie’s looking all around the room, especially at the front door – still shut and locked tight, the way he leaves it every night – but never really _at _Eddie. His glasses are still sitting on the counter behind him, but it’s obvious that’s not what’s stopping him from seeing the person standing directly in front of him. Guilt pools in Eddie’s stomach, cold as ice, and he tries to reassure Richie with a stream of things like, “You’re safe, I swear, I’m sorry for scaring you…”

He wants Richie to cut him off, to call his name and just… _look _at him, but all he does instead is lower himself painfully back to the edge of the tub and not-entirely-successfully stifle the beginnings of a sob.

“I’m really fucking losing it, huh,” he mutters to himself. “Fucking clown.”

“Thanks,” Eddie grumbles, more than a little hurt. He doesn’t feel all that different from the fucking evil sewer clown right now as it is. “…And you’re not losing it.” He doesn’t want Richie thinking it’s something wrong with him; the only wrong thing here is Eddie, and he – he wonders if he should just _go_, but that’s the awful thing about it, isn’t it? Just this little thing, a piece of paper and a sound at the door, and he can’t imagine leaving Richie’s side for anything.

He lowers himself to the floor across from Richie, back propped up against the cupboard, and he thinks, if – if Richie were the one thing keeping him here, ninety-nine percent alone and terrified for it, that maybe it would be worth it for that one percent, for the sliver of hope and the chance to watch over him.

He’d do anything to be seen by Richie, but he’d do anything _for _him, too. He’d spend hours at night pouring all his bottomless energy into picking at tea wrappers and trying to turn those bland, white hotel coffee mugs upright, all just so that he might eventually manage to prepare a warm cup of tea, leave it out on the nightstand and wait to see Richie find it there in the morning.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, this one is _considerably_ longer than any previous chapters - hence the longer wait, sorry about that! - but I think it had to be to bring us close to the very loose divide I had envisioned between acts 2 and 3. It hasn't been extra thoroughly proofread because I wanted to finally get it posted tonight, so I may wind up going back to slightly adjust a few things. Hopefully on a later re-read I won't feel it's necessary! 
> 
> Also! Consider this your official **Content Warning for alcohol abuse and emetophobia in this chapter**. This will, in _some_ respects, be the last especially Hurt-oriented chapter of this long H/C fic, but it is a lot, so tread carefully!

After that particularly disastrous start to his morning, Richie tries to focus on just being glad he has most of the day off to sulk in peace. His head feels like someone’s wrapped a bunch of rubber bands around it, and the adrenaline surge from thinking he was about to get Norman Bates’d in the shower leaves him shaky and tired on his way down to continental breakfast in the hotel lobby. Actually – that might just be the cold he woke up with. At least he’s hungry and no more nauseous than he’d usually be after a particularly bad scare.

_There was nothing actually there, though_, he reminds himself. The thought doesn’t do much to comfort him. Getting sick has always thrown his emotions all out of whack, but it’s not like he can’t tolerate the physical discomfort. He’s not even surprised, except maybe that it took this long for his immune system to crack under duress.

It’s a funny revelation, actually; being sick makes him remember Eddie – which makes him smile a little, because if he’d ever told Eddie that, he _definitely _would’ve been offended, mostly because Richie wouldn’t have clarified the _why_ if his life depended on it.

But it always has, even during those 27 years, when Richie never used to give much thought to how sappy and mushy and maybe a little too lonely he used to get whenever his health wasn’t at its best. Now, his brain feels like one of those scrolling news tickers they use to post headlines and stock market updates, except every headline is just ‘Eddie would be all over me about how he _told _me to take vitamin supplements to prevent this,’ ‘Eddie would be telling me to stay the fuck away and not get him sick, too’ – but then he wouldn’t really enforce that, even if he would act all indignant when Richie made a show of getting all in his space, just to tease –

He’d know what to do, too. He’d pretend to be more grossed-out and annoyed than he really was, but he’d try to get Richie to eat something healthy, take a nap, carry enough tissues, whatever.

They’re good memories, some of them, and good daydreams otherwise.

It doesn’t exactly soothe the pain of missing Eddie – probably more the opposite, though Richie can’t bring himself to think of it as rubbing salt into still-fresh wounds – but it’s how he calms himself down over a plate of breakfast sausages and not-quite-ripe fruit. It leaves him centered, at least, and it distracts him from how bad it hurts to swallow – more at first, and then slightly less as he manages to eat enough to count as a proper meal.

Jason comes down just as he’s finishing up, and Richie’s in luck because he has some Advil on hand when Richie caves to the throbbing of his head and asks for some.

“Think you’ll be good for tomorrow night, Rich?” Jason asks, because of course he does.

Richie manages to bite back a sigh and says, “I think so. It’s only another week, anyway – just load me up on cold medicine and I’m good to go.” He’s almost pleased with himself for pulling off the gung-ho cheer better than he’d really expected to.

“You’re lucky you’re not a singer,” Jason says, looking relieved, if also a bit unimpressed.

“You don’t think the gruff thing works for me?” Richie says, fake offended and _wow _he wishes Eddie were here.

Jason just reassures him that “ladies love men who sound like they’ve been gargling glass,” which earns him a very forced laugh and a slightly too-hasty goodbye as Richie retreats outside without really thinking about what he actually plans to do from there. He realizes he completely forgot to grab a jacket from his hotel room, which was stupid because it’s actually, like, below 60 degrees and he’s sick, but he does his best to ignore the chill because it’d be _way _too awkward at this point to just turn right back around and have to walk past his manager, especially after _that _exchange. He kind of regrets being out here and not resting, anyway. Eddie would –

“Whatever,” Richie mutters, just to cut himself off before it can get out of hand on him. He decides he might as well grab another coffee from someplace, if he’s not going to try to sleep. It’ll warm him up, if nothing else.

He walks aimlessly for a while, trying to keep up a brisk enough pace to stave off the early fall chill and hopefully just find a coffee shop by pure chance. _Shouldn’t be hard_, he thinks, except that after something like half an hour and a weird number of office buildings and no-frills apartments, he finally has to throw in the towel and pull out his phone to make an actual search. There’s one just over a quarter of a mile away that should be open, so he sets off in that direction – after one false start because, look, Google Maps isn’t as easy to use as it should be when you’re on foot.

By the time he actually makes it there, his headache is only a little better, and he’s pretty sure he’s starting to get dizzy, not that it’s bad – yet. Maybe he should get his drink for here, so he can sit down a while and get warm enough to think about walking back to the hotel.

“…at least called a Lyft…”

Richie stops short with his hand frozen on the handle of the front door. His heart starts jackrabbiting like crazy even before he takes a look around himself, because he recognizes that voice – would recognize it anywhere, as often as he fucking dreams it these days. He’s no more surprised that he can’t see anyone close enough to him to have said it than he was when he woke up feeling like shit this morning.

His dreams – the ones that aren’t nightmares, _obviously_, the ones that make him marginally less reluctant to go to bed at night – are filled with Eddie’s voice. They have been, on and off, since Derry, and that first time on the plane aside, he doesn’t usually sound scared. Sometimes, but also – joking, irritable, sad, and often a lot gentler and… fonder, maybe, than Richie thinks he ever could’ve – or would’ve dared – to imagine, himself. He doesn’t know what’s going on with his subconscious, but there have been plenty of nights where those unusually vivid dreams have helped at least as much as his daily chats with the other Losers.

If anything, he wishes he had more of those dreams and less of the ones where he has to see Eddie’s blood over and over in slowed-down, gruesome detail.

It’s one of a few things Richie still doesn’t talk about, even with the others. It feels too personal, like so much else about Eddie, and he wouldn’t know how to put it into words without sounding exactly as in-love as he is, which is a lot, or really unhinged, which he’s starting to think he might be.

He _definitely _might be, because then there’s a feather-light pressure on his bare forearm, cold enough that it’s noticeable even outside, and he hears someone – he hears _Eddie_ – say his name.

“Eds,” he says hoarsely, not sure if he means it as a response or not, and takes a step back from the café door without ever actually opening it. In the back of his mind, he manages to be distantly relieved that no other customers have tried to come in or out in the time he’s been standing here. No one seems to have taken any notice of him at all, save for one guy who gives him a curious glance as he hurries past on the sidewalk.

_There’s no one _here, he tells himself, but it doesn’t feel true. _There’s no one here and you need help._

“_Please_ don’t be scared, Rich, I’m s…”

The pressure on his arm vanishes just as the sentence trails off into silence, and Richie’s left standing alone on the sidewalk with his head spinning and his eyes watering. _Why’d he have to sound like that? _Like he – like Eddie was right there beside him, right where Richie would give anything to have him?

Like he was pleading with everything he had?

This time, Richie actually drops his phone when he tries to pull it out of his pocket, and it takes him two tries to pick it up again. Someone brushes past him on their way out of the coffee shop, but Richie barely notices in his hurry to get – fuck, he doesn’t care, he just needs _someone_ on the phone, _now_, so he dials the first number he sees and only manages to get Bill’s name out halfway through a whimper when he hears him pick up.

“Hey, are you okay? Your voice sounds”—

“Sick,” Richie croaks, very eloquently. He must look it as much as he _sounds _it; he realizes he started shivering at some point, and when he finally remembers to take stock of his surroundings, he catches more than a couple of people looking his way. The unwanted attention is enough to finally get him moving again, back the way he’s pretty sure he came before, but it takes him another moment to say, “I – I heard – I think I’m – there’s something really wrong. With – with me.”

There’s an odd clattering on the other end of the line, like Bill’s just shoved something out of his way, or inadvertently dropped it. “What happened?” Richie recognizes the dead-serious tone he uses, like he’s ready to hop on the next plane just to make sure Richie’s not in real danger. He thinks maybe he should feel guilty about that. Or… moved.

“It’s – it’s Eddie,” he says, and his voice goes entirely for a moment. He has to clear his throat, which fucking _hurts, _just to force himself to say, “I think I’m – I’m having… hallucinations, or. I don’t know.” _Do people have hallucinations when they’re sick?_ “What if”—

“Wait, wait, Richie – what about Eddie?”

“He – I thought I” – Richie nearly trips on an uneven bit of sidewalk and narrowly avoids face-planting – “_I heard his voice_, okay?”

“Oh,” Bill says, and now he just sounds – careful. “Where are you now?”

“Walking,” Richie says, and coughs into his free hand.

“Walking where?” Bill prompts, a little too patiently. Richie doesn’t answer him because he’s busy trying to decide if he should go on, try to explain about the ice-cold sensation on his arm – or that night in Reno, the same thing, the same voice, the same irrational surge of completely pointless hope as now. The lingering, nagging, not-quite-right feelings, the dreams that feel too real, the things that go bump in the morning, and that morning in Derry spent carving initials into weathered, old wood, another secret he can’t think how to tell.

He can hardly think at all. What the fuck is he supposed to make of any of that, other than that he’s more fucked in the head than he thought?_ Occam’s Razor, and all that._

“Richie,” Bill says, and it’s so firm that it breaks him out of his reverie just enough to get him to slow down a little; he hadn’t even realized how close he’d been to running.

“What?”

“You’re scaring me,” Bill says, slow and insistent. “Just – just stop for a moment. Tell me where you are.”

“Seattle,” Richie says after another moment’s pause. The shaking hasn’t stopped, he notices absently.

“Where in Seattle?”

“Walking,” Richie says again, then grits his teeth and says, “I don’t know.”

“Okay. Can you send me your location, please?”

“Yeah,” Richie says, and does so after only a moderate amount of fumbling. “Are you – you’re not coming here, right?” God, he sounds so fucking _gone_. Of course he fucking isn’t.

“I can,” Bill tells him, and to his credit he doesn’t sound the least bit like he thinks any less of Richie for asking. He just sounds worried, which is bad enough. “…Okay, got it. Stay there for a minute, okay? I’m getting you a ride back to wherever you’re staying. Can you send me the address?”

“I can call my own,” Richie argues, half because the blow to his pride is easier to focus on than all the questions in his mind, and none of them with answers he thinks he’ll like. “You think I’m…” He considers for a moment, trying to find a way to say it that doesn’t sound like an accusation. His voice breaks a little when he settles on, “You think there’s something wrong with me too, huh.” It’s not really a question, because if even Richie knows the answer, Bill _definitely_ does.

“I think we should focus on one thing at a time,” Bill says lightly. “We’ll get this figured out, okay?” The non-answer makes Richie’s heart sink, but he doesn’t argue, just tells Bill to hang on a moment and then forwards him the address of his latest hotel.

Bill stays on the line with him the whole ride back and all the way up to his room, which isn’t all that long, really, but it feels like forever the more Richie’s head starts to ache in earnest again. He can tell Bill is trying to keep him distracted, telling him little things about the book he’s working on and occasionally asking him easy questions that don’t require a lot more than one- or two-word answers. Just enough to make sure he’s still with him, at least more or less.

He must hear the door click shut behind Richie, followed by the rustle of sheets as Richie collapses onto his bed, because he quiets down after that. It looks like room service has already been by, which is good because Richie definitely didn’t remember to put out the ‘do not disturb’ sign, and definitely isn’t about to get up and do it now.

“…So,” Bill begins, and then pauses like he’s not sure where to go from here.

“So,” Richie agrees. His whole body feels heavy, but he thinks the trembling is starting to ease up, so that’s… good, he thinks, probably.

“You wanna tell me what happened back there?” Bill pauses again, and then sheepishly adds, “Would it be easier to do that by text?”

“‘S happened other times, too,” Richie mumbles, ignoring the second question entirely. “Just felt so… real.”

Bill gets really quiet, like he’s debating how best to tell Richie to check himself into the nearest mental hospital ASAP. Richie almost flinches preemptively when Bill finally says, “Do you ever see him?”

Richie knows that tone, too; it’s the one Bill uses whenever he talks about Georgie – which doesn’t really help Richie understand the question – or why Bill would ask it. All he can think to say is, “What?”

“You know – in crowds, out of the corner of your eye… Not like – like back in Derry, obviously”—

“No,” Richie says in a rush, “not like that.” It’s the same as back at the Kissing Bridge – probably a bad sign for his mental state, definitely salt in fresh wounds, but not _malicious, _not _Eddie fucking Kaspbrak –_

“So you know it’s not…”

“The fucking clown? No – no, obviously, Derry’s thousands of miles away, Bill, come on. It isn’t like that. I’m a little on edge” – he takes off his glasses to rub at the bridge of his nose and doesn’t bother putting them back on after – “or a lot on edge, actually.” He tries to steel himself with another couple of slow, even breaths before resigning himself to letting a few tears roll down his face when he adds, “And I know it isn’t real, either. I know it isn’t… actually him. ‘S impossible” – he has to try very hard not to let himself see it in his mind the way he sees it at night, all the blood and the way Eddie had _hurt_ –“so it’s just…”

“…Wishful thinking?” Bill finishes for him.

“I think it’s more than that,” Richie laughs through more tears. “If a fuckin’ dude with a forked tail and a pitchfork walked in here right now and offered a trade, I” – and this time when his voice breaks, he doesn’t really manage to get it back through the tears. Yeah, he’d trade his soul for Eddie’s – he’d trade his _life_. Eddie’s the one who saved it, anyway, right?

“I don’t think Eddie would’ve wanted that, either, Rich,” Bill says quietly. “And we all want you to take care of yourself. Eddie would’ve”—

“How would any of us know what Eddie would’ve wanted?” Richie snaps. It hurts his throat like crazy and at this point he’s barely talking above a whisper. “He’s not here to tell us! He’s dead in a fucking sewer because I” – at which point he snaps his mouth shut, but the damage is already done.

“Jesus, Richie”—

“I thought I could fight back,” Richie whispers. He doesn’t even know if Bill can hear him, his throat’s so fucked. Whatever’s left of his instinct for self-preservation is screaming at him to shut up and end the call, anyway, but he promised himself he wouldn’t do that again. So he does this, instead, and thinks maybe Bill will do the hanging up for him. “And I wasn’t scared, but It fucking knew I was so in – It knew it could get to me by hurting _him_”—

“That – that doesn’t make it your fault,” Bill interrupts. He sounds pissed, but not at Richie. “It wasn’t your fault. It was fighting back. It could have been any of us.”

“I wish it,” Richie says, and stops. Wish it had been me. He can’t say that, Christ, not to Bill – not to any of them.

-*-

Eddie’s_ definitely _no better than the fucking sewer clown. He decides he’s sure of _that_ somewhere between giving Richie a fucking panic attack in the middle of the street and still deciding to follow him up to his room. He’s like a cartoon storm cloud hanging over his best friend and the only reason he can find to not leave him in peace is his own cowardice.

He at least has the decency to stay out of Richie’s hotel room when they get back to it. He sits on the floor across from the door, instead, and he should be relieved on Richie’s behalf that the soundproofing is good enough in this place that he can’t hear another sound from inside after that, but all it does is make him worry. He feels pathetic. He feels like an asshole.

“I’m like my fucking mother,” he mutters at the frayed laces of his sneakers. He can feel anxiety starting to lap threateningly at the edges of him, so to occupy himself he settles for tying and untying the knots with shaking fingers. It’s a nervous gesture that stopped doing much to calm him down weeks ago, and now all it does is remind him of how _close _he’d been to real contact with Richie.

He can’t keep doing this. Richie doesn’t deserve that, on top of everything else.

So, he’ll do what he_ should _do, what he should have done in the first place – go home to New York, check in on Myra, maybe figure out how to leave her a note, if he can – and if he can’t, or once he has, he’ll eventually find someplace else to go, and if he checks back in on Richie and the other Losers it won’t be for months. Time enough for Richie to get settled without constantly jumping at Eddie’s shadow.

This would be so much easier if they’d all just forgotten Eddie.

He makes up his mind quickly; he doesn’t get up to leave for so long after that that he’s still sitting in the exact same spot and the exact same position when Richie emerges from his room some time after the sun’s gone down. Eddie climbs to his feet before he’s even realized he’s acting out of habit, and then he thinks – this can be it. He’ll let Richie lead him out of the hotel, if out is where he’s going. He’ll walk to the airport. It can’t be that hard to find, and it doesn’t matter to Eddie how cold it gets or how long it takes.

He opens his mouth to remark on the fact that Richie at least has a jacket on this time, but he remembers to stop himself in the nick of time.

He tries to keep as much distance as possible between them on the way down to the lobby, and he tries to keep quiet; it’s the weirdest feeling, because he hasn’t done _that_ in almost a month now – just the opposite, really – and it’s like being weightless, but in the worst possible way. Like the second his feet leave the ground he’ll never make it back down again. Like if he doesn’t talk he’ll forget how.

Richie sucks in a sharp, surprised little gasp when the outside air hits them, so it must be colder than he’d anticipated with just a light jacket on over his clothes. Eddie plans to head off in the opposite of whatever direction Richie happens to choose, but Richie doesn’t walk in any direction. He stops, looking dazed – and sick and _distraught, _with his eyes all red-rimmed and puffy and his cheeks flushed and his nose starting to run – and pulls out his phone to google something.

Eddie’s curiosity gets the better of him, so he sneaks up behind Richie – careful to keep a safe distance between them, but close enough that he can crane his neck just so – and sees that he’s searching for liquor stores.

Oh. That’s… probably not good.

Richie taps on the nearest result too fast to have actually looked at it, and then hits the “directions” button so hard it’s like he’s trying to drive his thumb straight through the screen of his phone.

When Richie takes off in the direction his app gives him, Eddie follows him in tense silence, his thoughts just an ongoing chorus of _not good, not good, not good._ He can’t do a damn thing to stop this, but going to the airport like he didn’t just see that leaves a bad taste in his mouth. It would be too fucking callous if he didn’t at least walk Richie to and from his destination, so Eddie resolves to stay quiet and keep his distance and hope that he’s just overreacting to a late-night beer run. He’ll leave when he’s sure Richie’s safe.

He becomes less sure by the moment. When they’re only about a block away from the store, Richie’s phone starts ringing. Eddie barely manages to catch a glimpse of Beverly’s name on the ID before Richie abruptly declines it. A few moments later, she calls again, and Richie declines it again – _and _turns his phone off before stuffing it haphazardly into his jacket pocket. He leaves his hand there and fiddles with it absently, like he wants to turn it back on, but something’s stopping him.

“What the fuck happened?” Eddie mutters under his breath. He’s relieved when Richie doesn’t stiffen or flinch at the sound of his voice, and that emboldens him to move in a little closer to him – close enough that he can’t help but notice how warm he is. Warmer than usual, probably, but Eddie’s still not sure.

The liquor store’s fluorescents make it painfully clear that Richie’s still fighting a headache, too, because he winces the second the light hits his eyes. He still makes a determined beeline for the whisky, even though he doesn’t look all that steady on his feet as it is. Much to Eddie’s alarm, he also doesn’t waste any time picking out _two_ identical bottles and taking them up to the register. At this point Eddie’s positive his heart would be racing if it could, but he still lingers behind just long enough to see that Richie picked out a pretty pricey bourbon, at least compared to the other options lining the shelves of this section. Is it better that he’s planning on drinking the good stuff? Maybe he’s just stocking up, and he actually plans to savor it.

_Who the fuck am I kidding, _Eddie thinks worriedly as he watches Richie do his best to avoid small talk with the cashier. Everyone knows it’s not a good idea to drink when you’re sick, _and _when does drinking your feelings ever work out for the better? Even the cashier is giving Richie a look that says he suspects that’s what’s going on as he somewhat reluctantly bags Richie’s purchase for him.

By the time they make it back, Richie’s starting to shiver again and Eddie’s almost entirely forgotten his plan to leave for the airport. The decision’s basically made for him, anyway, when Richie’s door swings shut behind him and he watches Richie cross the room and climb onto the bed – still looking freshly rumpled, like he’d maybe actually slept at some point while Eddie was sulking in the hall. He doesn’t even bother taking his shoes off first; his left foot leaves a dark streak of dirt on the white linens, which Eddie thinks would bother him a lot more than it already does if he weren’t so fucking _stressed._

Richie stares bleakly ahead of him at the blank screen of the TV, and then glances at the remote on the counter in front of it. Eddie expects him to grudgingly get up and get it, but he just sighs and digs one of the bottles out of the brown bag instead.

“You’re not even gonna use a glass? Rich?”

Richie chokes on the first swig, which he does indeed take directly from the bottle – only after tossing the cap over his shoulder like he has no intention of needing it again, of-_fucking_-course. Eddie can only imagine how badly the hard liquor must burn Richie’s throat; he spills a fair amount onto the collar of his shirt and only _just _manages to get the rest down.

Eddie can’t fucking _take_ watching Richie grimace and then immediately go for another drink without doing _something_, so he finally goes to him. He eases himself onto the bed beside Richie and presses one hand to his back, right over his shoulder blade, where he can feel the muscles shift minutely as Richie forces down a second and then a third gulp of expensive bourbon. He tries to think of something to say.

“Miss you so much,” Richie whispers to the room at large, stopping Eddie short. Eddie can hear the tears in his voice even before they start to drip down his cheeks. “All the goddamn time.”

“…I miss you, too,” Eddie says quietly. He doesn’t want to know what being in New York will feel like; this is already more distance than he can stand.

Richie sniffles, then takes another, albeit smaller, sip of his drink. Eddie watches him worry at a corner of the sheets with his free hand for a few minutes. Richie’s eyes are worryingly unfocused behind his glasses by the time he seems to remember the bottle in his hand. Eddie tries and completely fails to stop him from raising it to his lips again; this time, he doesn’t stop taking generous swallows until over half the bottle is gone.

“Goddammit, Rich,” Eddie hisses at him. “If you’re gonna go out of your way to make yourself sicker, at least fucking _pace yourself._”

Richie doesn’t look like he much cares if he gets the sickest he’s _ever _been. He’s still crying, but his breathing’s started to slow down and level out and his next swallow of bourbon goes down easy. Eddie can’t even find it in him to sound mad anymore when he says, “It’s just gonna make your throat hurt worse tomorrow” – and then he stops, and he looks at Richie – not that he’s done a lot of looking away since the start of this whole mess – and he thinks, _I’m so fucking scared for you, _and on the heels of that, _This is my fucking fault_, except that he doesn’t know if it’s his fault for being here or for, as far as Richie really knows, _not _being here.

He says, “I wish I could be” – and then he stops again, and if he didn’t know better he’d think he was catching Richie’s stupid throat thing, because he can’t – he opens and closes his mouth a few times, and every time the words make it to the tip of his tongue, they’re so far from _enough_ that he can’t get them the rest of the way out.

Finally, Eddie just whispers, “I’m so sorry,” and does his best to pull Richie into an unreciprocated hug. He’s shaking worse than Richie by the time he gives up on that, too, and pulls away just enough so that only his hand is still resting against his back.

-*-

Richie eventually lowers himself the rest of the way down onto the bed, so that he’s lying on his side with the remainder of his bourbon loosely clasped in one hand. Eddie immediately starts to worry that he won’t be able to tell the difference between normal sleep and the warning signs of alcohol poisoning, so of course he moves his hand to rest over Richie’s chest, the way he has at night on and off for a month; it’s a familiar enough gesture at this point that it _almost _calms Eddie down enough to stop his internal running monologue about those symptoms – _CUPS_, he keeps reminding himself, _that’s C for cold skin, but I don’t know if I’d notice, and U for – fuck, what was it?_ He can’t remember if it’s supposed to be unconsciousness or unresponsiveness – _of course he’s not gonna fucking respond to me –_

He’s so focused on fretting over Richie that he jumps a little when Richie groans and actually lets go of the bourbon – it falls over, but it’s so close to empty that it barely sloshes onto the sheets despite being entirely horizontal– to clutch weakly at his stomach.

That’s all the warning Eddie gets before Richie struggles to get one arm under himself – and then abruptly vomits all over the bed.

“Oh fuck,” Eddie says, because that’s _definitely _what the _P _stands for.

Richie barely has time to catch his breath before he pukes again, and this time he doesn’t manage to keep himself propped up on just one arm.

Before Richie can fall onto his own mess, Eddie throws his arms out on impulse and –

– and actually catches him. He’s fucking _heavy_, but he’s – he’s a solid weight in Eddie’s arms, and Eddie actually manages to move him, to pull him the rest of the way upright before he’s even registered what he’s doing. He holds him there, caught halfway between wonder and panic, until Richie comes back to himself enough to try to decipher his sudden change of position.

Richie doesn’t flinch or cry out this time, but his eyes do go wide and then he’s staring dazedly through –

No, he’s staring right _at_ Eddie, right into his eyes, and his mouth is open and then he lets out something that could be a sob or a laugh and lurches toward Eddie, narrowly avoiding knocking their foreheads together, and he slurs something that Eddie’s pretty sure is meant to be “Eddie Spaghetti.”

“Don’t call me that,” Eddie says, entirely without thinking. He wonders why his own voice sounds so funny until he realizes that he’s crying harder than Richie is – Richie, who’s already got his arms wrapped tight around him, who’s crying into the crook of Eddie’s neck and mumbling an endless stream of words Eddie mostly can’t decipher, slurred by alcohol and muffled against the dirty fabric of Eddie’s shirt. Eddie’s pretty sure he’s also saying Richie’s name, in between sobs that shake him so hard they’d probably hurt if they could. Richie reeks of alcohol and he’s _got_ to be smearing all kinds of unsanitary body fluids into Eddie’s already-disgusting clothes, but all Eddie cares about is that he’s _Richie _and he’s warm and solid and real and he’s _touching him, talking to him, actually _talking_ to him –_

For the first time in – well, in years, Richie hugs him and he hugs back, and for the first time in a month – but maybe also in years – Eddie feels well and truly _safe_.

It’s no surprise to Eddie that Richie’s the first to pull away, and one look at him makes it obvious why. It’s too late to guide him to the bathroom, so Eddie has to settle for rubbing soothing circles into Richie’s back with one hand and doing his best to keep him upright with the other.

By the time his body’s finished making a desperate – but probably futile – attempt to purge the excess alcohol in his system, Richie’s shaking has gotten so bad that it seems like it’s actively interfering with his already-bad coordination. That and the half-mast, vacant look in his eyes sends a stab of worry through Eddie.

“Talk to me, Rich,” he says lightly.

“‘M okay, Sp- P –”

“Maybe just use my name,” Eddie huffs. “Can you stand?”

“Eds,” is all Richie says – very earnestly, which is… adorable, but not helpful.

“Ooookay, we need to get some water in you,” Eddie concludes, and tries to pull Richie up to his feet. Which turns out to be really hard, actually, because Richie is one half-step away from being completely dead weight. Eddie nearly drops him. Even after manhandling him so one of his arms is draped across Eddie’s shoulders, dragging someone nearly half a foot taller than him is slow going. It’d probably be slower if he could actually feel the strain on his muscles. “Come on, Richie, work with me.”

“Spinning,” Richie mumbles. “S-slow down…”

“Then we wouldn’t be moving,” Eddie sighs at him. He manages to get him all the way to the bathroom one way or another, no thanks to Richie, and Richie manages not to throw up even as Eddie lowers him to the floor by the toilet. Richie also refuses to untangle his hands from Eddie’s shirt when he tries to pull away, which makes Eddie’s chest go tight and fluttery all at the same time. “I’m not going anywhere,” he promises as he gently pulls Richie’s hands away.

He’s almost glad Richie’s too out of it to notice how fucking _ecstatic _Eddie is when he tries to pick up the cup Richie used this morning and actually succeeds. But he doesn’t have the time to dwell on it, he reminds himself sternly before filling the cup with cool water and kneeling back beside Richie.

Richie turns his head away when Eddie tries to press the cup to his lips.

“It’s just water,” Eddie pleads. “You need it.”

“Mnn,” Richie whines, but he doesn’t pull away when Eddie guides his face back to the cup and helps him take slow, tiny sips from it. In between, he raises his eyes to Eddie’s and says, “Promise, ‘kay?”

“Promise what?” Eddie asks patiently.

“Won’ leddit happen f’real,” Richie says, and downs the rest of the water with minimal wincing and coughing. “If ‘m not dead.”

Eddie blinks, alarmed. “You’re not dead, Rich. Just drunk. Because you’re an idiot.”

“No,” Richie argues, clearly struggling to put some thought into words. “Not…”

“Really,” Eddie insists. “…Except for the part about being an idiot. I’m sorry”—

“‘S okay, I’ll stop it,” Richie tells him. “You’ll be okay. Yer okay…”

Eddie feels new tears prick at his eyes as he realizes what Richie’s getting at. “You’re not still in the Deadlights, either, Rich. And you’re not – you’re not hallucinating, you’re just sick. And really, really trashed.”

“Your mom’s trashed,” Richie informs him, and then pitches forward to throw up, into the toilet this time.

Eddie bites back and swallows down all the pleas and explanations he so desperately wants to offer Richie, and settles in to rub at his back and brush sweat-soaked hair out of his face in silence. _Please don’t forget you saw me, _he wants to say. _Please be able to see me when you’re sober._ But none of those things are promises Richie would be able to make even if he were present enough to understand them; all Eddie can do, really, is hope.

Hope, and do whatever he can think of to help Richie through the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [dude from midsommar voice] do u feel held by him?
> 
> So - hopefully that little breakthrough was worth the wait; obviously there's a lot more to come, though! One last heads-up, also - I've got family visiting from out of town this weekend and a pretty full work schedule to boot, so unfortunately the next chapter may also take closer to four days rather than the two-to-three I've made my personal goal.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional **emetophobia warning** for one description in this chapter - not _ultra_ graphic or anything but just to be on the safe side!

Richie wakes up feeling _infinitely _worse than he did yesterday morning. That’s the first thing he notices when consciousness hits him like a brick wall.

Actually, it’s more like a long list of things he notices, like that he can still taste a nauseating combination of alcohol and puke in his mouth, which is dry as a fucking desert – and, oh, he definitely is actually nauseated. Incredibly. He tries to open his eyes and instantly regrets the burst of pain it sends lancing through his head. His throat feels like it has a fist-sized block of wood lodged in it, which makes the urge to throw up that much more threatening.

He’s so miserable that he doesn’t fully register the quiet “oh” he hears when he tries and fails to sit up until there’s also a cool – or, actually, a _cold _hand pressed to his forehead. There’s no way he’s _that _feverish, right?

It takes him another long moment to remember that he’s supposed to be alone in his hotel room, which means he should probably be a little concerned that he apparently isn’t anymore. Is he even still in the hotel? He tries again to open his eyes and is just as unsuccessful this time, too; wherever the fuck he is, the lights are _way _too bright.

“Oh,” that same voice says again, and this time it sounds less hazy to Richie. “Hang on.”

There’s a soft click to his right, and the room around him goes dark enough that he can stand to open his eyes enough to actually see – or not. Where the fuck are his –

“Here,” Eddie says, and presses cool plastic into his hands.

…Eddie?

Richie nearly drops his glasses in his hurry to get them on. He might still be a little drunk, actually, so that probably doesn’t…

“…Eddie,” he whisper-croaks the second the face in front of him comes into focus. His limbs feel like they weigh about a thousand pounds each, but he still scrambles – in a clumsy, jerky kind of slow-motion – to get himself into a semi-vertical position. Eddie helps him do it with a lot more coordination than Richie can muster, which Richie would probably be more embarrassed about if he weren’t so focused on the arm Eddie wraps around his shoulders to help guide him.

“If I’m dead why do I feel like shit,” Richie says. Every syllable feels like it’s _literally _shredding the inside of his throat, but that’s so easy to disregard next to the sight of Eddie in front of him, touching him, talking, _alive_. By the light of the one lamp that’s still turned on and the barest hint of early morning daylight starting to stream in around the edges of the ugly hotel curtains, Richie can tell Eddie’s wearing the same clothes Richie last saw him in, that ultra-boring combination of a gray T-shirt and a dark blue hoodie, like he’s _also _allergic to actual colors – but apparently not to looking good in various shades of nothing – and he’s covered head-to-toe in sewer muck, dirt, grime… a lot of blood, especially on his chin and chest and stomach and –

Richie doesn’t realize he’s reached out to touch until Eddie stops him with a gentle but firm grip on his wrist.

“Please don’t freak out,” he says, sounding just like Richie had _thought_ he sounded in front of that coffee shop, “and you’re not _dead_, again, I already told you”—

“Oh,” Richie says, blinking slowly. He realizes Eddie hasn’t let go of his wrist yet. He doesn’t think Eddie’s noticed. And he sort of remembers Eddie dragging him into the bathroom, Eddie’s hand on his back, Eddie saying things to him that he definitely _doesn’t _remember – “I’m still dreaming?”

Eddie just sighs. “No, Richie.”

“So I’m not dead.”

“No.”

“And I’m awake?”

“Yeah, obviously.”

“You gonna” – he breaks off into a fit of coughing that makes his throat and eyes burn – “k-kill me?” It sounds a little too genuine for a joke, but only because he really has to _try_ to force the words out.

The effort feels worth it, though, because Eddie’s eyes immediately go puppy-dog wide. “No! No, Richie, I’m” – and then he sees Richie’s shit-eating grin and snaps, “oh, fuck you, asshole.”

Richie starts to laugh, but it makes his throat hurt so bad that he cuts himself off with a wince. Embarrassingly, the pain is bad enough to bring a few tears to the corners of his eyes – and way more embarrassingly, Eddie immediately notices.

“Shit, are you okay? I, uh, _think _you have a fever, and – wait, hang on,” and Eddie finally drops Richie’s hand so he can reach for something on the bedside table. He turns back to Richie with a cup of… definitely not coffee, so it must be tea clutched in his hands. “This should help with your throat,” he explains in a rush, “except you need to drink water with it, too, or else – actually, you should probably have that first,” and he’s just about to put the mug back where he got it when Richie stops him with a word.

“Eds.”

Eddie jumps a little and turns to meet Richie’s gaze.

“Eds,” Richie says again, just for the satisfaction of saying it to someone who can actually hear it, “what’s going on?”

He’s not sure what he expects, but it’s definitely not for Eddie to immediately get all teary-eyed. “I didn’t think you’d still see me,” he says, voice shaking, “I – I thought you’d need to go to the hospital and I wouldn’t be able to help. Or that you’d think you were dreaming or – or just forget,” and by the time he finishes that sentence he’s fully crying and swearing under his breath in obvious frustration. He scrubs uselessly at his face with the backs of his hands and stammers, “Shit – sorry, I – sorry, I don’t know wh—”

Richie cuts him off with a soft “c’mere” and opens his arms in a semi-awkward invitation. He half-expects Eddie to reject the offer or pretend he doesn’t get what Richie’s doing, but his hesitation is entirely limited to putting the tea down first, and then being careful not to jostle Richie too badly when he presses himself to his chest and wraps his arms around his waist.

It’s probably a good thing Richie’s throat hurts too much for a lot more talking, because the only thing his short-circuiting brain can come up with in that moment is _cute, cute, cute. _It’s like a dream come true, except that he’s still kind of afraid he’s actually dreaming. He wants to run his hands through Eddie’s hair so bad he actually gets halfway there before he’s even realized what he’s doing; he settles for rubbing absently at Eddie’s back and doing his best to get the rest of his bearings. It’s funny – he can feel Eddie quaking and shivering against him. He’s a solid weight against Richie, holding him almost uncomfortably tight and crying like the world’s ending, but he really is cold – like room temperature, at best, definitely not normal alive-and-healthy human temperature.

Then there’s… Richie has a hard time looking at the entry wound on Eddie’s back because it feels too much like every nightmare he’s had since it happened. He wants to ask Eddie if it hurts, but he’s pretty sure Eddie would be significantly worse off than Richie is right now if it did. He doesn’t trust his own voice, anyway, so he settles for the next worst thing and lets his hand slowly drop to the edges of the – the hole.

Eddie stiffens immediately, so of course Richie pulls his hand back like it’s been bitten.

“It’s – it’s pretty bad. Sorry. Should’ve. Covered it up or something.”

Richie makes a very laborious attempt at swallowing to clear his throat, but his voice still comes out sounding virtually unintelligible. What he says is, “How does it feel?” but Eddie clearly doesn’t quite get that, because he doesn’t give Richie an answer. He just sits back up and puts a little extra distance between them.

_Serves me right_, Richie thinks. “Did” – he coughs again, which is _agonizing_, and then Eddie is pushing back his chair and walking away from him. Richie doesn’t have time to start panicking about Eddie leaving for whatever alternate dimension he just stepped out of before Eddie’s back at his side with a hotel-branded pad of paper and pen lying in his outstretched palm.

“Do us both a favor,” he says mildly.

Richie nods his thanks and takes them from him. He starts to write _‘Are you alive?’ _but only gets about one and a half words in before he scribbles that out and tries again.

_‘Did you come down from heaven’ – _another pause – is that too much to say to Eddie’s face? – _‘or wherever to yell at me for’ – _this pause takes longer, because in all honesty there are a _lot_ of things Eddie could and probably would yell at him for if he knew about them. He decides that if it’s anything, it’s getting completely trashed on bourbon with a nasty cold – or worse – but he doesn’t even really want to write _that_, so he just puts _‘last night’ _and leaves it at that.

“I didn’t come down from anywhere,” Eddie says when Richie shows him. He’s frowning like he doesn’t know what to say. “I’ve… been around?”

Richie just stares expectantly at him, so Eddie shifts uncomfortably and says, “I have been. You just couldn’t see me. Or hear me, or – or feel me. I usually can’t” – and he raises the cup of tea in his hands – “even do this.”

Richie tries to say, “What – pick things up?” but the words come out sounding more like a dying cat than human language, so he huffs irritably and writes it down.

Eddie draws in on himself the way he always has when something’s really bothering him. “…No.” He stares at his shoes for a moment and then says, “It’s like I’m not even here.”

_‘You are though right?’ _Richie scribbles quickly. Eddie raises an eyebrow at him but lets Richie finish writing after holding up a hand to show he’s not done. _‘How are you here,’ _he writes – “I can barely read that,” Eddie complains at him – _‘are you okay?’_

“No,” Eddie repeats. “I’m not fucking okay, Richie, I’m _scared. _I’m – I don’t know how long this” – he gestures between himself and Richie – “is going to last, and I don’t know if I can fucking take another month of talking to myself and – and looking like this, and not being able to sleep or eat or touch anything. It’s awful, okay? And by the way, if you do anything like this again, I _am _going to yell at you, I swear to _God_, you scared the shit out of me.”

“You’re” – Richie winces and finishes his sentence on paper – _‘yelling now.’_

Eddie looks away. “…Sorry. About all of this. I meant to – I was going to go.”

_‘Where,’ _Richie writes. He doesn’t include any exclamation points, but they’re probably implied by the look on his face.

“The great beyond, asshole,” Eddie mutters down at his lap. When he glances at Richie’s hands and sees he’s not jotting down a retort, he looks back up at Richie’s face. Whatever he sees there must be painfully transparent, because it makes him look instantly remorseful in turn. Slowly, almost reluctantly, he says, “New York. Back to Myra.”

Ah.

“Can I” – shit. He writes, _‘Can I help?’_

Eddie picks at a spot on his jeans and mumbles something. It takes him a ridiculously long time to notice that Richie couldn’t hear a word of it, and even longer to repeat it: “Not with that.”

_‘So what,’ _Richie starts to write, but then he’s completely blindsided by a sudden wave of intense nausea and, shit, this is happening; he drops the pen and paper and claps a hand to his mouth, but his body’s five kinds of fucked up and there’s nothing he can do.

It’s unbelievable how quickly Eddie reacts; he has a trashcan Richie’s pretty sure used to be sitting by the tiny desk in the corner ready just in time for Richie to cough up a thin stream of bile into it. Disgustingly, the gagging doesn’t stop even when it becomes painfully obvious that he doesn’t have anything left in his stomach to throw up. Eddie squeezes his shoulder and murmurs quiet platitudes at him, which is almost as disorienting as getting sick in the middle of the weirdest conversation of Richie’s life.

He whines a little when he finally manages to get his traitorous stomach back under control. Eddie hasn’t stopped rubbing at his shoulder – little circles with the edge of his thumb. When Richie looks up at him, Eddie’s brow is furrowed and Richie can’t help cracking a little smile at him. “Thanks,” he croaks.

“Don’t mention it,” Eddie says, but he still looks worried. “Think you can get some water down?”

Richie nods and takes the cup Eddie hands him, though he really kind of mourns the loss of Eddie’s hand on his shoulder. It’s pathetically slow going, trying to get the water down his throat; even the tiniest sip feels like swallowing a fucking baseball. He wants to ask Eddie to touch him again. He buries that thought as deep as he can and doesn’t breathe a word.

When he finishes, Eddie immediately gets up to refill the cup. Richie lets him go without complaint, but he’s careful to keep his eyes on him until he comes back – at which point Richie scrunches up his face and focuses hard on forming every syllable of what he wants to say.

“I’ll remember you’re here,” he says. “Even if I can’t see you.”

Eddie almost drops the glass of water, and when he looks at Richie it’s with an expression Richie doesn’t know how to read. “It’s okay if I stay?”

“Of fuck – _ow _– fucking course, if you want”—

“I do,” Eddie says, eyes wide and shining with unshed tears again. “I just – I keep scaring you. And I’m – Richie, I’m not –”

“Alive?” Richie manages.

Eddie looks stricken, and then he looks – disgusted?

“I don’t know what I am,” he says. “But I don’t have a fucking pulse.” He refuses to look at Richie this time, even when Richie reaches for him and puts a hand over his. Richie’s own heart is hammering, but Eddie’s right – _his_ hands are cold and still until he pulls them away from Richie to wrap his arms around himself, over the wound in his chest. “This isn’t normal.”

Richie nudges at him and gestures weakly at the pen and paper. Eddie grimaces but hands them back to him, anyway, and Richie immediately writes something across several pages before turning the pad so Eddie can read it: _‘Anyone would be scared if someone jumped out at them from around a corner’ – _he flips the page – _‘it’s basically the same thing when you think about it’ – _another page – _‘I just didn’t know it was you’ – _and then he has a terrible dawning realization and skips ahead several pages to write, _‘Was that you at the coffee shop and the door this morning?’ _

Eddie nods. Richie is already writing his follow-up question, _‘And when I was talking to Ben and Bev?’ _He has to take a few deep breaths before he hands the pad back to Eddie, who gets impossibly quieter after reading it. The way he fidgets nervously and doesn’t really look away from it is all the answer Richie really needs.

“Sorry,” Eddie says finally, “I know”—

“No, I’m sorry,” Richie whispers. “Really.”

“Richie”—

Richie just shakes his head – one sharp movement that makes his head throb and swim – and he really wishes he wasn’t about to cry. He writes out his next words half just so he won’t have to choose between looking Eddie in the eyes and actively avoiding looking Eddie in the eyes.

_‘Do you really want to stay,’ _he writes. _‘That doesn’t bother you?’_

“No,” Eddie says. “It doesn’t.”

_‘What about one of the other,’ _Richie starts to write, but Eddie reaches out and touches his hand to get him to stop. Richie jerks away and still doesn’t look at him.

“_Listen_,” Eddie presses. “Can I just – I don’t know what to say, but I think I should apologize. Even though you were technically talking directly to me at the Kissing Bridge? I know it’s not really the same as – as actually knowing I’m here.”

“Shit,” Richie hisses under his breath, because he’s been doing his best not to even _consider _that part of it. He’s crying and doing his best to hide it, but he knows how obvious it has to be to Eddie, who he’s just now realizing must’ve seen Richie cry tons of times, practically always _about Eddie_, which he also probably knows. Richie anticipates the next surge of nausea before it comes; it’s only half because he’s hung-over from a long night of drinking his feelings.

If Eddie makes a grab for the trashcan this time, Richie doesn’t see it, because he rolls away from him to heave onto the other side of the bed instead. The intense sense of déjà vu it gives him brings with it the distant realization that he’s pretty sure this happened not that many hours ago, and that Eddie must’ve changed the bedding for him sometime after.

And he’d been too fucking wasted to notice.

He feels like such a fucking _asshole – _no, scratch that, he _is _one, and Eddie’s a saint for putting up with it.

“Richie,” Eddie whispers.

He sounds scared and desperate, and that – the part of Richie that exists just for _him_, because of _him, _that’s driven by the instinctive need to make sure he’s okay, is maybe the only thing capable of shaking Richie out of his own panic enough that he’s able to gasp a strangled “what?”

“You know I… I…”

And then the room goes quiet, and Richie is alone again.

-*-

Eddie recognizes the shift for what it is the moment the trashcan starts to slip from his hands despite his firm grip on it, but knowing doesn’t do any good. He sets it down with shaking hands and calls Richie’s name, which is easy, and tries to finish a simple sentence, which is _impossible. _There’s no simple way to say something that still feels so complicated.

“You what?” Richie says hoarsely, but Eddie couldn’t give him an answer even if he were still capable of hearing it. “Eds?”

Eddie meets Richie’s outstretched hand with his own, palm out. He lets Richie push his hand back to his chest and watches as Richie’s expression twists back into one of grief.

Richie’s quiet for a long time, and then he leans over to retrieve the pen and paper from where he last dropped them. Eddie watches as he writes something and then sets both items down beside the slowly-cooling mug of tea on the nightstand. He pauses for a moment, then takes the tea with both hands and whispers a barely-audible “thank you” before taking a sip.

“Sorry it’s not hot anymore,” Eddie tells him tonelessly. He’s almost afraid to look at the note, but he does, if only because he knows it could very easily be the last thing Richie says to him for a long time.

He scans the words quickly, then reads back over them slowly several more times, doing his best to commit them to memory. _‘You and I both know you don’t owe me anything, but please stay for now. Maybe we can all help you. I promise I won’t make it weird.’ _

Eddie’s chest twists uncomfortably at the last part. “I’m not worried about that,” he says. He can’t begin to comprehend how Richie can be too busy thinking that Eddie will be put off by his feelings to even consider being disgusted by the fact that Eddie is following him around as an invisible, reanimated corpse – and instead of assuming he’s like the majority of undead things in movies, Richie just says, ‘please stay’ and offers to help like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

Maybe that should worry Eddie, but it actually just makes him feel a little stronger in the face of whatever’s coming down the line. It’s so much like Richie to set his sights on a goal based entirely on how much he wants it and not at all on the reality of it. It makes Eddie feel warm and soft and fucking _sappy_, and he’d rather spend days unable to ignore those feelings than have to face being scared and alone again too soon.

Richie gradually finishes his tea – peppermint, chosen because Eddie hoped it’d help with his nausea – and returns the empty cup to the nightstand. He nearly sets it directly on the notepad, but he moves it off to the side at the last moment, rips that top page off and leaves it where Eddie can still see it. He starts writing something else on a fresh page.

_‘Thanks for the tea’ _– Richie pauses a moment, then adds – _‘and everything else. Sorry for being so’ – _he stops writing and sighs softly. Then he crosses off the last part of that sentence and just writes _‘kind of a mess,’ _which gets a quiet laugh out of Eddie. He reaches over and gives Richie’s knee a gentle squeeze, too, because even though Richie doesn’t seem to feel it, it feels like the right thing to do.

“Guess that makes two of us, huh?” Eddie says as Richie starts digging around in the pockets of his jacket. He comes up empty-handed, of course, but Eddie relaxes as soon as he notices his phone sitting where Eddie left it plugged in for him – still turned off, against Eddie’s better judgment.

Richie hesitates for a long moment before he turns the phone back on. The second it’s finished loading and regained its signal, it starts to buzz nonstop with what looks like dozens of missed calls, voicemails and texts. As far as Eddie can tell, they’re all from the rest of the Losers.

Richie grimaces at the final number of notifications, but he goes straight for the notes app instead of opening any of them. Eddie leans in, curious, but he refrains from actually reading what Richie types until he holds the phone out the same way he had the notebook: _Before u start w me I just wanna say idk what this is about either. _There’s a break of a few lines, and then an added, _ok like maybe a little but it wasn’t that bad._

“Clearly,” Eddie says dryly. Richie holds his phone out uncertainly for another minute before sighing and closing out of the note without saving it. He starts in on the messages on his phone, then, and Eddie stands to pace around the room a little. It’s not so much that he actually needs to stretch his legs – he never gets stiff or sore in the first place anymore – but it’s definitely a habit he doesn’t particularly want to shake.

“Fuck,” Richie rasps, with a predictable wince, after barely a minute of scrolling. Eddie raises an eyebrow at him, but Richie’s fully distracted by whatever he’s reading.

What he turns toward Eddie – or a little left of where Eddie had been sitting, but the intention is clear – is a series of texts from Bill. Eddie can just glimpse the tail end of a bunch of worried questions, followed by periodic updates on a flight, presumably to Seattle. The last one was from just under thirty minutes ago: _‘Just landed, be there soon.’_

Eddie blinks in surprise. “That’s gotta be some kind of a record.” He kind of understands why Richie looks so unhappy about the prospect of Bill’s imminent arrival, but he can’t keep a little smile off his own face; it’s good to know that the Losers can be counted on to look out for Richie even when he can’t, and maybe Bill can talk enough sense into Richie to get him to go home just a little earlier than planned.

Richie, for his part, makes an immediate beeline for the bathroom, with a very raspy “don’t follow” directed at Eddie.

“I wasn’t going to, fuck you very much,” Eddie retorts, already making himself about as comfortable as he ever is on the edge of the bed.

He’s more than a little smug about it when, a moment later, Richie peeks his head sheepishly back around the door and strains to say, “Thanks for these, too,” with a little gesture back at the neatly folded change of clothes Eddie knows is sitting on the bathroom counter. He laughs, a little giddy, when he catches a muttered line about overachievers just before the bathroom door swings shut and the shower starts up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, sorry this one took four entire days again! On the plus side, it is also on the longer side, so hey! I had fully intended to include more plot-advancing stuff but felt like a chapter break made more sense than just jumping right into The Gang Starts To Convene (By Any Contrived Means The Author Feels Are Justified!) and I wanted to get another update in besides.
> 
> Also y'all know the "You know I... I..." is directly from the book and I've been bound and determined to work a nod to it in here since day ONE.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How's that for a speedy update?

Bill is _absolutely_ going to chew Richie out on behalf of the entire Losers’ Club the second he knows there isn’t actually anything to worry about; that’s what he keeps telling himself on his way to the airport, and on the plane, _and _when he finally gets to the address Richie gave him for the Lyft and realizes he completely forgot to get Richie’s room number.

He’s halfway to the reception desk with his best extremely-forced polite smile on when his phone chimes in his pocket and stalls him long enough to save the bored, tired-looking desk clerk the trouble; it’s from Richie.

_‘Hey’_

Bill frowns and immediately calls him. He’d been too busy worrying to remember to charge his phone during the flight, so now it’s dangerously close to dying on him, and he needs that room number before it goes completely. There are a few people milling around the lobby, mostly on their way to and from the breakfast that’s sitting in the adjacent room; Bill wonders idly if he’d have better luck asking one of them.

Richie immediately rejects the call; before Bill has the chance to call him again, he gets another text notification.

_‘Hang on jeez’_

_‘Can’t really talk’_

Immediately more worried than he’d already been, Bill rushes to respond, _‘What’s your room number? My phone’s dying.’_

_‘1408’ _– followed by _‘didn’t you write a short story called that lol’ _–

_‘Beep beep, Richie,’ _Bill types, exasperated.

_‘No really that’s what it is.’ _There’s a concerningly long pause, followed by _‘you’re already here?’_

_‘Yes.’_

Richie doesn’t respond at all this time, so Bill pockets his phone and makes his way up to the fourteenth floor as quickly as the elevator will take him – which is actually agonizingly slow, if not _quite _slow enough to make him wish he’d taken that many flights of stairs after pulling what amounts to an all-nighter.

When Richie opens the door on the first knock, Bill’s first thought is that he definitely hasn’t slept enough, either. He’s obviously just showered, but the smell of alcohol and vomit wafting from the room behind him is pretty unmistakable, and judging by the way Richie doesn’t really look him in the eyes when he steps aside to let him in, he knows that, too.

Bill pulls him into a hug the second the door swings shut behind him; he’s not finished being relieved, _and _still worried, so he’s definitely not ready to be mad.

“Hey,” Richie says. He’s definitely going for a normal indoor talking voice, but he’s barely got a voice at all; Bill has to strain to hear him. He takes a step back and gives Richie another quick once-over; his face is flushed and he looks pretty unsteady on his feet, and then there’s the way he seems to be avoiding swallowing. All that combined with the alcohol would paint a pretty bad picture on its own, but at this point it would be downright irresponsible not to press him for more than that.

“Hey,” Bill returns, a little hesitant because Richie is also obviously uncomfortable on more than one level and not volunteering much of anything. “Richie, what happened?”

Richie sighs and pulls out his phone. Bill’s already looking down at his when he gets the text.

_‘Isn’t it kind of obvious’_

Bill frowns. “No, it’s not. Mike saw you’d cancelled your show tomo—tonight, and you kept rejecting everyone’s calls – what were we supposed to think?”

Richie flinches, which is only _almost _enough to make Bill want to back down. His gaze flits from Bill to the room behind him and back again, like he wants to find an escape from this conversation but can’t.

Well, good. Bill already feels bad enough for not talking to Richie about this more as it is.

Richie looks like he’s on the verge of tears when he finally holds up a finger – _wait a minute _– and crosses the room. Bill watches in expectant silence as he tears several pages from a notepad on the bedside table and adds them to a stack there; Bill can’t make out what’s been hastily written on any of them, but he eyes them and the desk chair beside the bed with a growing sense of unease.

There’s a sort of frenetic energy about Richie when he comes back and writes something new for Bill to read.

_‘I know this probably looks bad,’ _the note says, _‘and it’s about to get a lot weirder but I swear’ – _Richie turns the page and finally looks Bill in the eyes – _‘it’s really important and I’m not as crazy as I’m about to sound.’_

This is definitely not helping Bill worry _less_ about his friend; he thinks about telling him so, but Richie looks earnest enough that between that and him basically asking Bill “please believe me,” he doesn’t have the heart.

“Okay,” Bill says instead, still cautious and feeling like a bit of a broken record, “so what happened?”

Richie smiles, but there’s a nervous edge to it, like he’s afraid of what Bill will say when he finishes writing and passes the pad back to him again.

It says, _‘I saw Eddie. Like really saw him. We talked.’_

Dread settles in the pit of Bill’s stomach – more and more painfully the more he rereads the note and listens to Richie’s nervous shuffling.

When he finally looks up, Richie’s still smiling, but it’s forced. Bill isn’t smiling; he’s just scared. He wants to ask how much Richie had to drink, but the answer is obviously ‘too much,’ and he wants to know if Richie has a fever, but that’s just as obviously going to upset Richie.

He _can’t _pretend he believes it, for Richie’s own sake.

“Richie, we all saw him down – back there,” he says lightly. He can barely stand to see the pain that immediately flickers across Richie’s features, but he doesn’t do him the disservice of looking away when he adds, “He’s gone. We all miss him, but that doesn’t change”—

“_Please_,” Richie croaks at him. “I – we” – he exhales sharply and makes a grab for the paper, which Bill lets him take without a fight. _‘We’ve all seen things that seemed impossible. Why not Eddie?’_

“Because Eddie’s _dead_, Rich,” Bill says helplessly. “And dead people don’t just come back, even in Derry.”

Richie has to blink away tears to answer him. He’s starting to shake badly enough that Bill wants to guide him to a chair or something, but he doubts Richie would let him. He’s obviously frustrated and struggling to keep his words limited to the paper.

_‘But he was so scared. I promised we’d help. All of us’ – _‘all’ is underlined several times, one of the lines pressed in hard enough that the pen’s torn through to the page behind it, and Richie gives Bill a significant look when he meets Richie’s eyes again after reading it.

“How would that even work?” he asks, and hates that he has to. “And where is he now?”

_‘He doesn’t even know, that’s why we have to help,’ _Richie writes, then sighs again and moves to lean – or sag, really – against a wall. _‘He should still be here but he says we can’t tell most of the time.’_

“Doesn’t that seem a little convenient?” Bill presses.

Richie just glares at him.

“I’m sorry,” Bill says. He makes a hesitant grab for Richie’s arm and is honestly relieved when he doesn’t immediately recoil from the touch. “We were just – we _are _worried about you. All of us,” he says pointedly.

Richie shrugs him off to write, _‘Well you should be busy worrying about Eddie’_

“_You’re_ still here,” Bill tells him through a growing lump in his throat. “You” –

Richie blinks owlishly at him, obviously caught off guard when Bill doesn’t finish his sentence. He looks away pretty quickly, and then guiltily back at Bill. His next note is the shortest so far.

_‘Sorry,’ _it says, and then after a moment, a scribbled, _‘For scaring you.’_

“You promised not to vanish on us like that,” Bill says in lieu of a direct response. Richie looks impossibly guiltier, and nods. Which leads to him wincing, which somehow leads to him staggering to the bathroom and heaving into the toilet. Bill loiters uncomfortably in the doorway, trying not to listen too closely to every pained gasp and feeling very much like he’s intruding on something he doubts Richie really wants him to see.

Richie looks a lot worse for wear when he finally comes back out and retrieves his dwindling supply of paper from the floor. Before he can write anything – before he has to try to come up with anything to write – Bill pats him on the shoulder and says, “I think we need to get you in to see a doctor.”

Richie doesn’t even try to argue with him. _‘I have a flight back to LA later,’ _he writes, clearly aiming to take up as little space as possible on the pages he has left. _‘Guess I’ll just check out now. Wait a sec’ – _and he goes to gather up his scattered belongings into a big overnight bag. Bill makes an effort to help him, but Richie just waves him off.

At one point, he pauses briefly by his bed, gaze fixed on an empty cup of tea; the little paper label at the end of the bag’s string is still hanging off the side of it, and Richie brushes lightly at it before scooping up the pages left scattered around it and folding them into his pockets.

-*-

Bill manages to revive his phone in the waiting room of the nearest urgent care while Richie’s being seen. He flicks through his messages and responds to Audra first: _‘Made it here safe. I’ll be back late tonight.’_

She texts back before he’s even done reserving a ticket for a flight to LA that’s leaving not too long after Richie’s – already fully booked, much to Bill’s annoyance. He really doesn’t like to think of leaving Richie on his own right now, even if it’s on a crowded airplane; he’s already gotten Richie to promise to wait for him at the airport so Bill can drive him back home himself. He’s pretty confident Richie will actually keep that promise, if only because he obviously feels bad about this whole thing. If feeling bad is what it takes to get Richie to do things like go to a doctor and accept tangible help from his friends, Bill only feels a little bad about it.

“Mr. Denbrough?”

Bill jumps half out of his chair at the sound of his name. “Yeah?”

“We have a few things to go over with you, if you don’t mind,” a nurse tells him, gesturing at the hallway behind her.

Bill is in such a hurry to follow when she turns to lead him past several exam rooms that he forgets his phone and charging cord and has to half-jog back to retrieve them. The nurse seems entirely unfazed and just gives him another pleasant smile as she leads him into the room Richie’s in.

Richie gives an unenthusiastic wave from the edge of the exam table when he catches sight of them. He has one of those tiny paper cups of water in his other hand, though it looks like he’s barely touched it. It sloshes threateningly with the little movement, almost but not quite spilling.

“Is everything alright?” Bill asks.

“Well,” the nurse begins delicately, “we’ve definitely had a little too much to drink” – hard to miss the embarrassed flush that gets out of Richie – “and the test for strep came back positive, so you’ll want to be extra, _extra_ careful about getting enough fluids for the next few days.”

This is obviously not news to Richie, who just shrugs uncomfortably when Bill gives him an alarmed look.

“There’s medicine for that, right?” Bill asks the nurse – Valerie, according to her nametag.

“Yes, we’ve already sent the antibiotics ahead to the Walgreens on 15th,” Valerie tells him. “It should be ready by the time you get there. It’s really going around right now, so they should be well-prepared.”

Richie gives Bill a pointed look, as if to say, ‘See? Not my fault.’

“Okay,” Bill says, just as pointedly ignoring Richie’s look. “Will he be alright on his own?”

He _more _pointedly ignores the frustrated huff Richie directs his way at that.

“Oh,” Valerie says, taken aback, “You don’t live together?”

“Oh,” Bill echoes with a reassuring smile, “no, sorry, we’re just friends visiting from out of town.” He glances at Richie, sure he’s probably throwing a stupid wink or a grin his way, but he’s just sitting frozen with his gaze fixed on the cup in his hands.

Valerie doesn’t seem to notice how badly her passing comment seems to have thrown Richie, maybe because she’s too busy being relieved at the easy out Bill’s given her. She rushes to explain that Richie should be fine, provided he doesn’t drink again while he’s recovering, and that resting plenty and avoiding strenuous activity is a must. She gives them a few germ masks for the flight – more as a courtesy to the other passengers than anything else – and suggests that they find a place for Richie to rest until the flight is due to leave.

Pretty much everything she says seems pretty common-sense to Bill, but he still puts together a little list, anyway, and texts it to Richie on their way out the door. Richie opens the text but barely looks at it before he closes his phone down again and continues to resolutely avoid meeting any of Bill’s curious looks.

Bill considers playing dumb, but thinks better of it. It wouldn’t be very much like him, and Richie would know better. “Did what that nurse said bother you that much?”

Richie jerks like he’s been burned and stammers something Bill can’t really understand, then huffs and pulls out his phone to text a response.

_‘Sorry.’_

“…For what?”

Richie stops walking long enough to type a longer response. He hesitates a moment before sending it to Bill’s phone.

_‘I don’t want to talk about it, okay? Just sorry if it made you uncomfortable.’_

“…Okay,” Bill says uncertainly. More to himself than to Richie, he also mutters a confused, “Why would it?” Maybe the nurse was a little uncouth, but Bill’s pretty well aware that he doesn’t have a lot of room to judge anyone for that. Besides, her assumption kind of makes sense in context, even if Bill thinks it’s pretty obviously wrong.

Richie doesn’t dignify his question with an answer – which is weird, coming from him – and that leaves nothing but an awkward silence to settle between them; they start walking again, but Richie’s no less withdrawn even after several minutes have passed. He keeps glancing around himself, but never fully at Bill.

With a sinking feeling, Bill realizes who he’s probably looking for in the dark periphery of his vision.

He decides it would be better to catch a ride down to the pharmacy rather than walk the remaining several blocks with Richie looking – and acting – as out of it as he is, so he steers Richie into a coffee shop and orders them both drinks. Richie sinks gratefully into a chair at the first opportunity, so Bill figures he’s made a good call.

Even more so when Richie finally breaks his silence. _‘So obviously u don’t believe me,’ _he types, followed by _‘I probably wouldn’t believe me, either.’_

“Kind of a ‘you had to be there’ thing?” Bill recalls, forcing humor where he doesn’t feel any. Richie still looks entirely convinced that whatever he thinks he saw was really there, and Bill suddenly regrets not asking the nurse how likely Richie’s fever might’ve been to give him vivid dreams, or confuse him, or anything, really, as long as it doesn’t have to be the worst-case scenario. Bill doesn’t even know what the worst-case scenario would _be_; that was always more Eddie’s thing.

_‘He made me tea,’ _Richie comments, and Bill is immediately struck by the image of Richie’s fingers grazing the edge of a cup of tea as if it were the most important thing in that messy hotel room.

Bill doesn’t say anything because he can’t think of anything that wouldn’t come off as callous, but he also can’t in good conscience encourage this… whatever it is. Caught between a rock and a hard place.

Richie’s expression darkens a little, then, and the way he writes his next message is different. He holds it open and away from himself for a long time but doesn’t send it; it almost looks like he deletes some or all of it before Bill’s phone finally vibrates with an incoming text.

_‘If you did believe me though, would it be okay if Eddie went back with you instead of me’_

Bill can hardly believe Richie would want that, the way he’s clinging to the delusion of Eddie’s presence like it’s a life preserver.

“You know I can’t give you an answer to that, Rich,” Bill says, his voice strained.

_‘It’s up to him, I’m just saying it’s an option,’ _Richie writes. Oddly, he opts to show Bill the text this time instead of just sending it to him.

And wow, Bill hates feeling like this – like he knows Richie needs some kind of help, but that it’s also probably the kind of help Bill’s just not equipped to give. He can’t do _nothing, _but he’s distressingly cognizant of the fact that most of the things he can think to do could easily wind up making everything worse.

He finally settles on one thing, at least.

“Richie,” he says, choosing his words carefully, “can you promise one more thing?”

_‘I’m not going to act like I didn’t see him.’_

“I’m not – not asking you to,” Bill says, aiming for reassuring and instead landing unpleasantly close to patronizing, “but can you just make sure you don’t neglect yourself worrying about Eddie?”

Richie frowns down at his coffee.

Finally, he says, slow and barely audible over the ambient sounds of a reasonably popular coffee shop in the middle of Seattle, “It… sounds like a nightmare. What’s happening to him. But – yeah,” he finally says, “I’ll take better care of myself.”

And, hell, Bill thinks to himself, that’s _something._

-*-

— _because Eddie said he’d be mad if I didn’t, _Richie doesn’t say, but he thinks it, and when Bill stops looking at him quite so closely he quietly types another note and holds it far enough away from himself for long enough that if Eddie’s still here, he should be able to tell Richie wants him to read it and still have plenty of time to actually see it.

_‘Totally ur fault Bill thinks I’ve lost it,’ _the note starts, because that’s fucking grating even if he can’t _really_ blame Bill – or Eddie – for it. But, _‘If he believed me he’d want to help you too. I saw u so maybe he will too if u give him a chance.’_

Then there’s the selfish part that Richie lets himself have only because he remembers the look on Eddie’s face when he asked him to stay: _‘I’ll miss you. Obviously. I meant it when I said u could stay. But I’ll be ok if you’d rather hang with the other Losers for a while. Or longer. That’s a promise to u 2, fwiw’_

It’s easier to imagine it – being okay – with Bill sitting across from him and the lingering awareness that Eddie could be there, too. He’s going to do his best to hold on to that awareness for as long as he can, because if he feels like Eddie’s watching maybe it’ll make it easier to do right by himself – and Eddie will hopefully _actually _be wherever Richie’s least likely to make him uncomfortable.

He’ll try to be okay; he just – hopes Eddie will be okay, too.

-*-

“He said _what?_”

Bill falters mid-sentence and repeats, “That he saw Eddie. He – he even says he talked to him.”

Beverly gets eerily quiet on the other end of the line. Bill expects her to echo his own fears, but after a moment, she just says, “My messages still aren’t getting through to him. Did his plane already leave?”

“Yeah,” Bill says, totally nonplussed by the sudden urgency of her tone, “about twenty minutes ago – just made it to my own gate. Sorry for not calling any of you earlier, it’s just – he’s really insistent about this. He knows I don’t believe it, but nothing can convince him he was just – I don’t know, dreaming?”

“Bill,” Beverly says, “he might not have been.”

“_What?_”

“You left first,” she explains, but she sounds more like she’s talking to herself than to Bill. “So you didn’t know. I didn’t want to bring it up again if I couldn’t be sure, and Richie was already grieving enough as it was”—

“But that’s – that’s exactly the problem, isn’t it?” Bill stands and paces by the giant windows facing the tarmac. An old man sitting nearby gives him an irritated look, presumably because he’s raised his voice in disbelief. “It’s – it’s not good to keep seeing someone like that, right?” It hadn’t been good for _him_, and he’d _known _it couldn’t really be Georgie he was seeing.

“I don’t know,” Beverly says, quiet, “but what if it’s really him? I saw him too, Bill, he was with Richie when he left, and then he just – vanished.”

“You… you saw him? In Derry?”

“The last day,” Bev confirms. “I didn’t tell Richie. Mike and Ben both know, but they wouldn’t have told him, either. I’m the only one who saw.”

Bill’s brain consists of two thoughts, and they’re split evenly on a wheel with an arrow set to spin at random between either option; either Beverly _also_ needs a therapist and to get back in touch with an unforgiving reality, or Bill needs to cancel his flight to L.A. and go straight back to the sewers of Derry.

“I feel like I can _hear _you jumping to conclusions,” Beverly comments after a moment. Bill thinks she probably didn’t mean to sound as serious as she does.

Bill sinks into the nearest uncomfortable airport chair. “Well – well what if it’s him?” he echoes. His heart is hammering in his chest.

“Then maybe it’s time for another meeting of the Losers’ Club.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, putting Eddie under one of two cups and then rapidly shuffling them: where is he :3


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted to say thank you to all of you for the sweet comments! They always brighten my day a lot and I apologize for getting so behind on responding! It's 100% because I'm busily typing away at the fic itself lol.

Dying should make things easier, or at least _simpler_; that’s it, game over, you had your chance or maybe you didn’t, but the ships have all sailed and it’s the final curtain and everything’s set in stone and a thousand other clichés that all boil down to there being no more hard decisions left to make or avoid.

Eddie explains all of this to Bill and Richie over coffee – absolutely banking, probably not for the last time, on them _not _being able to hear him – and Richie, of _course_, goes and complicates it that much more.

He signals in his a-lot-less-discreet-than-he-thinks-it-is way to Eddie that he wants him to read what he’s typing on his phone, cutting Eddie off mid-nervous rambling. Eddie momentarily appreciates the distraction almost as much as he appreciates how quickly this kind of one-way communication has started to feel like another routine, between the trivial jokes and complaints Richie kept typing back at the doctor’s office, the _‘please stay’ _and awkward thank you’s in their – in _Richie’s _hotel room, and whatever it is that’s making Richie look so downcast now.

He really doesn’t need to hold his phone so far away from himself, Eddie thinks. “How the hell do you manage to still read that with your crappy vision _and _a hangover?”

_And_ a strep infection – _god_, Eddie wishes he could tell Richie about the spare weekly pill organizer he left packed into one of his bags. It’d be more useful being used for a week’s worth of antibiotics than it is gathering dust in a corner of Richie’s apartment.

He barely remembers to actually read what Richie’s written before Richie erases most of it to send to Bill. _‘Jsyk since Bill’s here technically this is an option and I’m trying not to be a dick about this,’ _the first sentence reads; all Bill gets to see is the subsequent question about whether or not he’d be okay with having Eddie around.

Eddie doesn’t get a lot of time to puzzle over what j-s-y-k is supposed to mean.

“You know I can’t give you an answer to that, Rich,” Bill says, and Eddie’s stomach twists uncomfortably for the umpteenth time – a combination of the inevitable sting of having to listen to his own friend adamantly deny his existence and the coiling guilt of realizing how thoroughly he might be fucking up Richie’s ability to grieve like a normal person under normal, zombie-free circumstances.

_‘It’s up to him, I’m just saying it’s an option,’ _Richie writes; Eddie knows he mostly means _‘I’m just giving you an option.’_

He wishes he knew what to do with that.

“It sounds like a nightmare,” Richie says, and Eddie feels tears prick at his eyes because it _really fucking is_, but it’s less like one with Richie going to bat for him. “I’ll take better care of myself,” Richie also says, and Eddie thinks _you better _and wonders if a dead man has any business doing the same.

_‘Totally ur fault Bill thinks I’ve lost it. If he believed me he’d want to help you too. I saw u so maybe he will too if u give him a chance.’_

“You could’ve found a better time to tell him, you know,” Eddie gripes, but even as little as he dares hope for any substantive help with his condition, whatever-the-fuck it is, he can’t help being grateful that Richie _didn’t _wait to speak up.

Richie’s expression shifts almost imperceptibly when he adds a line break and then also types, _‘I’ll miss you. Obviously. I meant it when I said u could stay. But I’ll be ok if you’d rather hang with the other Losers for a while. Or longer. That’s a promise to u 2, fwiw’_

“…Why do you keep using weird acronyms,” Eddie sighs. He’s torn between wanting to tease Richie for his repetitive back-and-forth fretting and wanting to snap at him for acting like Eddie’s some stray cat that can be passed from home to home just because it’s convenient. If he has to be like a cat, then he’s already made his own decision about which home he prefers, and it isn’t Bill’s.

…_Has_ he already made that decision?

With a jolt and a swell of embarrassment, Eddie’s thoughts tangle into a mess of _just like my mother _and _Richie’d be teasing me for fretting already, _and it’s just disorienting enough that he caves to the urge to take Richie’s hand on their way out to the Lyft Bill called. And he thinks _yeah, I have, _because Richie’s a fucking adult who can make his own decisions and _he’s_ decided that he wants Eddie to stay, and that he’ll try to be okay if Eddie doesn’t.

He’s just giving Eddie an option, right? Eddie is free to choose based on what he _wants_, and that’s – that’s still a novelty.

It’s still simpler than having to put anything into words, but with Richie’s hand in his he thinks – maybe. Maybe.

-*-

Richie’s phone is immediately flooded with incoming texts when he takes it off airplane mode in L.A., which – okay, not exactly what his pounding headache and aching limbs want to have to deal with for a second time in one very long day. Is this gonna be a regular thing now that he’s been unofficially declared mental by Big Bill himself?

He scrolls through the various chats and sees that he has things from all of the Losers, plus his manager; without even opening that one, he can see that the single message is about finding someone to cover the dates this weekend. Richie ignores the slight pang of regret that dredges up, because it’s definitely for the best even if it doesn’t exactly feel great. Honestly, it was probably destined to be a lose-lose situation either way.

He opens Bill’s messages first, hoping to at least get an ETA so he knows how long he’s gonna be stuck trying to keep himself awake on a shitty bench in the terminal. He’d rather not have to come back here for his car and he knows better than to drive in heavy traffic when he’s half-dead from exhaustion and just starting to hit maybe the second half of a nasty hangover, but the heavy drag of fever and thoughts of his bed back home are enough to make him somewhat regret that particular promise to Bill.

Bill’s texts are mostly a bunch of updates on his progress toward actually boarding – on time, thank fuck – but the last one to come through a couple of hours ago just says, _‘Beverly saw him, too. We all need to talk.’_

Richie’s breath catches on an inhalation. Beverly saw Eddie? How? _When?_

He calls Beverly on impulse and only remembers that he’s not exactly in great shape for a verbal talk after she’s already picked up.

“Richie? Is Eddie there?”

“Dunno,” Richie tries to say. _Ow_.

“…Wait, did you lose your voice? Bill said you had strep, but he didn’t mention… I’m sorry, do you want to text instead?”

Richie sighs and minimizes the call screen to send her a text. _‘Yeah, sorry. Wasn’t thinking.’_

Bev ends the call before he can and just as quickly sends him, _‘Are u okay?’_

_‘Been better. So what about Eds?’_

_‘How did he look to you?’ _Beverly asks.

Richie hesitates, then types _‘No offense but,’ _just to be safe. He waits for long enough that Beverly finally texts him a question mark just to prompt an answer from him, so Richie sighs, deletes that part of the text, and says,_ ‘Worse than me. Like he did then.’ _He doesn’t elaborate.

And then Richie remembers Eddie, talking so fast it’s a wonder he didn’t stumble over his words, the way he always has when he gets especially worked up about anything, blurting “looking like this” and the knot in his stomach tightens.

So, he adds, _‘He looked like Eddie.’ _He hits send and lets his thumbs hover over the keyboard for so long that the screen goes dark – and even then, he still can’t come up with words strong enough to explain what that means.

It means stepping outside first thing in the morning on a warm summer’s day, roughhousing, splashing around in dirty water and skinned knees and teasing. It’s the way he laughs and the way he cries and all his bluster and the honest goodness of him.

It means coming home after being away too long.

_‘There’s no one else like him,’ _he finally writes.

His screen only has time to dim slightly before he sends that, too.

_‘You’d know at least as well as any of us,’ _Beverly responds. If it hadn’t been her, Richie might’ve read it as an accusation, but the quiet _knowing _of it doesn’t scare him like it always has. He thinks about telling her that Eddie knows, too, and that that _does_, but he can only be so selfish with Eddie’s wellbeing on the line, so he asks her again what she saw, and she tells him about Derry.

She tells him that Eddie had been looking at _him_ before he’d seen Beverly, and Richie doesn’t let himself wonder why that is or what prompted her to mention it specifically. She also apologizes for not telling him about it sooner, but Richie just stifles a laugh before it can hit his sore throat and tells her, _‘Don’t blame u, it didn’t exactly go over great w Bill and I’m already a basket case’_

Richie thinks about sending a belated _‘lol,’ _too, but it would probably just make that text look worse than it already does. He should _really_ proofread these things before he sends them.

_‘You aren’t. We’ll find a way to help him.’_

_‘Thanks,’ _he answers, and tells her, _‘I promised him we would,’_ even though by the looks of it Bill’s probably already told her that, too. Which reminds him, _‘He might be with Bill.’ _Or will be, once Richie’s home safe. He doesn’t say how much he hopes he _won’t _leave with Bill, because Eddie doesn’t need that kind of pressure and it makes Richie feel fucking pathetic, besides.

To his surprise, Beverly is the one who says, _‘Maybe he should stay with you. You’ve seen him once already.’_

_‘You think it’s a me thing?’ _Richie types as quickly as he can, brow furrowed, and then he clarifies, _‘Not that kind of me thing, the ghostbusters kind.’ _God, if Eddie’s reading any of this he’s definitely in the middle of calling him out on the bad reference. Did any of those guys have actual ESP? Richie’s pretty sure they didn’t.

_‘I think it’s the safest bet when we don’t know anything else.’_

Richie honestly considers that for a moment. He resolves to bring it up with Bill when his plane lands – just to be sure Eddie hears it, too.

Objective reasons, he figures, are okay to mention; it’s only his personal ones that aren’t.

-*-

Richie turns out to be especially devoted to the whole ‘giving Eddie options’ bit, because despite looking like he could keel over at any moment by the time he and Bill make it back to his car, he still doesn’t immediately climb in and try to catch a quick nap; he opens every fucking door of the vehicle before settling into the back seat and curling up against the door diagonal from Bill.

Eddie, who climbed into the front seat at the first opportunity and then awkwardly squeezed himself into the back, watches Richie make his rounds with a fond smile; even Bill looks less worried and more bemused by Richie’s antics.

“What?” Richie huffs at him once they’re out on the road. Eddie can’t imagine how Bill manages to understand him through the surgical mask he’s still refusing to take off – because he’d feel too bad if Bill got sick, too, according to him, although Eddie suspects he’s also hoping to maintain some public anonymity on the heels of a few cancelled gigs.

“Nothing,” Bill says. “That was sweet of you.”

Eddie’s smile widens into a grin at the way Richie’s face immediately reddens. It’s such a full-face blush that he can see it even under the mask. Ha – how’s that for anonymity? Richie just flips Bill off and goes on staring obstinately out the window.

“And you used to call _me _cute,” Eddie laughs, but Bill’s right – it _is _sweet, and comically gentlemanly coming from Richie of all people. He even does the same with all the doors of his apartment building, right down to holding the elevator door open an unnecessary extra second or two on their way up.

“If I couldn’t manage to follow you through a few doors, I definitely would’ve gotten lost three states back,” Eddie points out, but he doesn’t mean what he’s trying to imply; he likes the clear acknowledgment of his presence, and he likes not having to pull increasingly ridiculous maneuvers to avoid getting left behind anywhere. He’d almost forgotten how nice it is to not have to treat every door as an impenetrable barrier.

God, he really is like a cat. He can’t let that particular comparison occur to Richie, or he’ll never hear the end of it.

Richie takes the face mask off and drops onto the couch in his apartment as soon as they’re inside. Bill takes the armchair and only manages to convince Richie to stretch out by promising that he’ll wake him up to finish their talk if he happens to drift off.

Eddie, meanwhile, leans over the arm of the couch – and Richie’s shoulder – and watches him type. Just like before, some of it is meant just for him. _‘Try to keep up w us, Eddie Spaghetti.’_

“Maybe if you actually wrote all your words out,” Eddie retorts, “and don’t call me that.”

Bill, who’s even more oblivious to their one-way attempts at bickering than Richie is, just says, “I really am sorry I didn’t believe you.” It isn’t the first or even the second time he’s said it, and Eddie guesses it won’t be the last. He looks disproportionately guilty about it, considering how completely normal his reaction would be in any other group of people.

More quietly, he adds – this time for the first time – “To you, too, Eddie, if you’re here.”

_‘He has to be,’ _Richie reminds him.

“Coming from Richie, anything would be hard to take seriously,” Eddie jokes, mildly taken aback. “…I’m just glad you were here to look out for him.”

“Of…” Bill trails off with a confused frown. Richie raises an eyebrow at him, so he finishes, “Of course? I don’t know why I thought”—

Richie bolts partway upright with a triumphant grin on his face. “That” – he coughs roughly and hurriedly types something Eddie’s only able to see when he finally settles back onto the cushions: _‘That’s happened to me too!’_

“You think that’s something Eddie does?”

Richie just nods. Eddie can practically pinpoint the moment a thought occurs to him and his smile lapses into something a little more forced. _‘Guess that means there’s rlly no reason Eddie couldn’t just go w u then’_

“What do you mean?”

_‘Bev said it might be better if he stayed w me bc I’ve seen him and u haven’t but if u can almost kind of tell he’s there maybe eventually,’ _and he does the equivalent of trailing off, not even bothering to finish the sentence before he sends it to Bill.

“Enough with the going with Bill stuff, Richie, I’m not fucking doing that,” Eddie mutters.

“You don’t really want that, right? Why do you keep suggesting it?”

Richie falters a little in his rush to provide an explanation; he has to fix about a dozen typos as he goes. _‘Bc it’s abt what he wants,’ _he starts, and then deletes the ensuing _‘and what if he only came w me bc I have his things’ – _to which Eddie responds with a muttered, “That was just an excuse, asshole” –_ ‘and I don’t wanna twist his arm.’ _

It’s Bill’s turn to look taken aback. “I don’t think you’d have to. You two were – _are _just as close as we, um, are? Probably closer. If he’s been around since Derry, he could’ve already picked any of the rest of us.”

Richie’s mouth settles into a grim line. _‘You don’t know’_ – but he deletes that, too – _‘But that was before he knew’ – _Eddie can practically see realization flicker across Richie’s features as his typing slows and then stops. He gives Richie’s shoulder an excited squeeze.

“Yeah, it wasn’t,” he says quietly, right into Richie’s ear.

Richie gasps softly and drops his phone to press his hand to the spot where Eddie’s breath would’ve just grazed his skin.

“Rich?” Bill asks, already on his feet.

Richie doesn’t answer him. His eyes are already scanning the space behind him, but to Eddie’s disappointment they don’t settle on him in the slightest.

“Can you hear me?” Eddie says a little louder, and then hopefully – “Did you hear that just now?”

Richie’s hands drop back to the phone in his lap. He types, _‘You said it wasn’t didn’t you? Please say something else.’_

Bill reads that one, too, and immediately starts his own little search for Eddie, at first with his eyes and then with slow, sweeping gestures like you’d make in a dark room, or blindfolded.

Eddie says, “Getting colder,” and no one answers him, but Richie is smiling something softer and more private and it floods Eddie with a sensation he can only describe as warmth. “Guess you’re still better at this than Bill, huh, Richie?”

Richie echoes that sentiment with another text to Bill: _‘Guess I win this round.’ _It’s quietly exultant and maybe a little gloating. For the first time since their conversation in Richie’s hotel room, Richie finally looks like he’s willing to let himself think Eddie might stay.

-*-

Richie still makes Bill promise to talk to Eddie from time to time before he goes, if only because he can’t stand to think that there’s even the slightest possibility of Eddie having to spend another day feeling like he must have been for the past several weeks. They hadn’t been able to come up with any real plans beyond a hopeful wait-and-see, but Richie’s feeling optimistic, buoyed by the promise implied by the tingle of Eddie’s breath on his neck.

Why was he so _close?_

Richie wonders if he can blame the strep – and the bourbon, although that’s more specifically his own fault – for not thinking more about this since last night, but now those three words are _all _he can think about as he forces himself through a sluggish bedtime routine and a second antibiotic pill. _Yeah, it wasn’t._ Richie couldn’t see the smile on Eddie’s face, but he could hear it in that sentence. He sounded _excited_, like he’d been waiting all day for it to occur to Richie that he’d come all this way already knowing Richie loved him.

_Theory of mind, idiot,_ he can imagine Eddie saying to him. _Just because _you_ didn’t know I knew doesn’t mean…_

Doesn’t mean what?

_You know I –_

“What were you gonna say?” Richie whispers, his raspy voice half-muffled by his pillow after he crawls into bed. He wonders where Eddie goes at night, if he’s here beside Richie again or doing his best not to die of boredom out in Richie’s empty living room.

He thinks about that for a moment before he forces himself back out of bed and pads back down the hall to the living room. First he finds himself a piece of junk mail to jot a note down on. _‘In case u get bored,’ _he writes, suddenly self-conscious as he fumbles around for the remote and turns the TV on. He figures Netflix is his best bet and scans their Trending list for a while before giving up and spending an increasingly ridiculous amount of time finding a TV show that looks good enough.

He settles on _Twin Peaks_, turns the volume down low, and leaves the remote out for Eddie. He knows it’s probably not likely that Eddie will conveniently manage to actually use it, and he knows the app won’t let anything play indefinitely without a press of a button here and there, but he figures maybe it’s the thought that counts. And, who knows, maybe he’ll get lucky.

Richie goes back to bed, then, but he doesn’t close the bedroom door behind him.

-*-

Eddie doesn’t know if he should consider the open door an invitation or not. It’s probably better to err on the side of caution, though, and besides – he’s still a little choked up by the gesture with the television; he doesn’t want Richie’s latest kindness to go to waste.

So, he settles in in front of the TV and semi-pays attention to the first three episodes of _Twin Peaks_ – definitely not the worst thing Richie could’ve picked, considering how he’d hovered over several awful-looking comedies at first – but he keeps an ear out for the telltale sounds of nightmares from down the hall.

There aren’t any, and then the stream cuts out before the fourth episode to ask if Eddie’s still watching.

“Fuck,” he groans with a baleful glare in the direction of the remote. Should he just skip the frustration and go check on Richie, instead?

Well… the TV will shut itself off eventually, if it’s like the one Eddie has back in New York, and with its quiet background noise gone the apartment is perfectly silent. Richie is fine and getting some much-needed rest, and Eddie wouldn’t mind getting a little practice in before he misses his chance.

He resolves to wait just long enough to give it the old college try before he inevitably wanders into Richie’s room.

He’s just about to give up on the old college try when the button depresses beneath his finger – just once, which is only enough to light the screen back up after so many wasted minutes. Eddie tries again, eyes wide, but nothing happens.

“Are you serious?” he complains at the message frozen on the screen. “I should get this one just for effort!” He makes several more increasingly heated attempts to get anything on the remote to budge again, but with no results.

He’s so fixated on it, in fact, that he doesn’t notice the sound of footsteps until Richie’s arm passes right in front of his face and he lets out a startled squeak.

At least it doesn’t look like he has to worry that Richie heard it; he’s still bleary-eyed, like he just woke up, and he presses a button to resume the show without so much as glancing at Eddie. He’s stifling a persistent cough, which Eddie assumes is the only reason he’s awake at all.

“Better luck next time, Eds,” he yawns as he sets the remote back down, and Eddie’s relieved to hear his voice sounds a little better already. The episode that’s starting to play behind him already forgotten, he follows Richie into the kitchen, leans against the kitchen island and watches Richie get a glass of water straight from the tap.

“I hope you have a filter on that,” Eddie says, wrinkling his nose. Richie winces a little trying to swallow some of it, and winds up dumping almost half of it back down the drain, but Eddie doesn’t think he’s imagining that his sore throat seems to have improved a little, too.

He hesitates just long enough in following Richie back into his bedroom that he winds up with the door shut directly in his face.

He’s still in the process of nursing his hurt feelings when he hears footsteps returning to the door – and then it swings back open, and Richie is standing there looking torn and only slightly more awake.

“Mm… Sorry, force of habit.”

So he usually sleeps with the door closed, after all. Eddie blinks after him as he crawls back under the covers and mumbles a quiet goodnight.

Eddie kind of wishes he’d say something more explicit – ‘why, yes, Eddie, it’s totally fine if you watch me sleep now that I know you’re around, totally not creepy or a breach of boundaries at all’ – but then again, maybe Richie doesn’t really know what he expects, either.

He watches from the doorway until he’s sure Richie’s fallen asleep before he finally lets himself approach and delicately ease his way onto the bed beside him. Richie doesn’t stir, even when Eddie slips a hand over his chest and lets the steady thud of his heart slowly drive the uncertainty from him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Being a ghost... is like a dating sim. You can choose "watch TV" or "watch the love of your life sleep" but either way it's domestic!
> 
> I spent approximately two minutes on Netflix trying to decide which show to namedrop, and when I tell you it's a genuine tragedy I couldn't use _Santa Clarita Diet_ because it started in 2017... Full disclosure, I haven't actually seen _Twin Peaks_. I'm more of a movie person!


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most importantly, just wanted to let y'all know that [billybatsontrash/ItsyBitsyBatsySpider drew a beautiful piece of art for this fic](https://billybatsontrash.tumblr.com/post/188375395235/fluffifullness-heres-the-fanart-for-and-i-will) and I'm honestly still floored! Go check it out!
> 
> On a more serious note, I know this fic is literally tagged “internalized homophobia” and that is a major part of what it’s about but I still feel like I should warn you guys that this chapter is gonna get particularly heavy on that front, so tread carefully!

Richie dreams that there’s a cool weight on his chest, centered right over his heart. It drifts in and out of the periphery of his consciousness like light filtering through curtains hung in an open window. It weaves itself into the fabric of his dreams, coming and going along with the sound of a voice pitched too low for him to make out any words, mingling with the distant sound of tires on asphalt and steady breathing. It’s like something taking root and growing into the core of him, so that when he finally opens his eyes it’s like something’s been wrenched loose and left a hole where it was.

It takes him a very long time to come back down to earth.

He’s alone-but-not-alone, he thinks. His throat hurts less, but his limbs still feel slow and heavy when he raises one hand to press it to the vacant spot on his chest.

He clears his throat and it doesn’t feel like glass shards raking at him, so he drags himself upright and to the edge of the bed, throws his legs over the edge, and says, hoarse but workable – and not a bit eloquent – “Hey.”

His only answer is the muffled sound of traffic on the street below; the soundproofing in his apartment is good but not ironclad. He’s almost relieved, if only because he wouldn’t have known what else to say if Eddie’d said anything to confirm that that wasn’t all just a weirdly soothing fever dream.

Speaking of which. Richie takes a moment to fumble around for his glasses before he gets up to take his temperature in the bathroom. His fever’s gone, though it’s left his clothes sweat-damp and clingy. He holds the thermometer at arm’s length for just a moment, on the off-chance – but no, Eddie wouldn’t have followed him into the bathroom, so Richie takes a quick shower, and when he makes it out to the kitchen with his phone in hand, he says, only a little awkwardly, “My fever’s down.”

He lets that hang in the air until after he’s downed another antibiotic pill – and a _lot _more water than he’s been able to comfortably drink in over a day – at which point he notices that the TV’s off and the remote is lying right where he remembers leaving it.

“So either you didn’t like the night’s programming, or I should figure out how to change my Netflix settings,” Richie observes. “Feel free to let me know by, I don’t know, tossing the remote across the room next time. Whatever you wanna do. Except maybe don’t smash the TV. That would be kind of a dick move.”

He doesn’t hold his breath for Eddie to come back with a snappy retort.

…Or maybe he does, just a little, and when it doesn’t happen he sighs, just shy of dejected, and plops down at the table to send a few texts back and forth with the other Losers. There’s not a lot of food left in his apartment, between his sudden trip to Derry and an ongoing tour. He should really go get something to eat, but his head still feels like it’s stuffed full of cotton and he’d prefer to put it off for as long as he can justify it.

Mike’s already sent him several texts asking for various minute details about all the times he’s seen or heard Eddie – _‘How many times has it been?’ _and _‘When?’ _and _‘What were you doing?’ _and so on. Some of them – that last one, especially – are too hard to answer, but Richie still does his best to explain everything he can, down to fleeting moments and things he’d brushed off that in retrospect look more and more like Eddie to him.

_‘Does any of that help?’ _he finally asks. Mike hasn’t responded much to Richie’s little flood of texts, except to ask for clarifications here and there – some of which Richie firmly refuses to actually provide. The Kissing Bridge is off-limits, between him and Eddie _only _– and even that makes his heart hammer every time he thinks about it for too long.

_‘Honestly, not at a glance,’ _Mike admits. _‘None of it rings any bells.’_

Richie reads over the text several times, willing it to say something different, then announces, “Well, Mike doesn’t have any ideas… Yet?” But even he can tell how forced that attempt at optimism sounds. Mike’s probably the only person on the planet with practically encyclopedic knowledge of Derry and all the fucked-up magic shit that’s ever happened in it; he’s their best lead, and if he doesn’t know…

Mike must notice how long it takes him to respond, because he follows that up with, _‘I’ll look through my old notes, though. If there’s anything there for us to work with, I promise I’ll find it.’_

_‘Thanks, Mike,’ _Richie responds, more quickly this time. _‘If anyone can come up with something, it’s you, right?’_

_‘I hope so,’ _Mike says. _‘And either way, I’ll try to get some time off work as soon as they’re able to do without me for a week or two.’_

_‘Well you did just start,’ _Richie says, surprised by the offer. _‘I don’t think I expected all of you to drop everything and come to L.A. right this second or anything’ _– when I don’t even know how long it’ll be ‘til I can talk to Eddie again, he doesn’t say.

_‘At least Ben and Bev are on their way though, right? Maybe having most of the group back together will do something.’_

Well, _that _certainly comes as a surprise. _‘Wait really? When?’_

_‘Now I think? Didn’t they tell you?’_

_‘I haven’t read anyone else’s messages yet,’ _Richie admits. Then, _‘Thanks, Mike, ttyl.’_

_‘I’ll keep you updated if you do the same,’ _Mike agrees. _‘Take care, Richie.’_

Richie rushes to check his other messages, his hunger mostly forgotten for the moment, and finds that both Ben and Beverly have sent him a few texts each since he went to bed. Sure enough, the latest is from Ben over two hours ago – Jesus, is it really already noon? – promising to be in L.A. by early evening.

_ ‘Weren’t u 2 supposed to be soaking up the sun for another few days?’ _Richie replies.

He’s pretty sure they’d have to already be on a plane to keep that promise, so he’s a little surprised when Ben answers him right away. Must’ve sprung for the in-flight WiFi.

_‘This is a little more important, right?’ _The typing bubble doesn’t even have time to disappear before he adds, _‘Is there anything you want us to bring by when we get there?’ _The typing bubble reappears after a moment – _‘We have a hotel already, if you’re not up for company yet.’_

“Only that guy would seriously worry about imposing in the same breath as he offers to do someone else’s shopping for them,” Richie says to the empty space across from him. He ignores the ache of wanting an answer he knows he won’t get by focusing all his attention immediately back on his phone._ ‘I can get my own groceries, thanks,’ _he types – then thinks better of that and changes it to _‘I’m good. Already got groceries.’ _Yeah, totally didn’t sleep half the day, no sir.

_‘We assumed you’d still be asleep,’ _Ben tells him. _‘Bev says hi, btw.’_

Richie elects to pointedly ignore the first part of that. _‘Give her a kiss from me,’ _he says, and adds several of the kissy-face emoji for good measure.

_‘I will!!’_

Richie grins. He can practically _hear _Ben’s blush in that response.

After a pause Richie decides to assume is because his friends are busy having a moment, Ben sends another text; Richie reads it and lets his smile slip before he can remember to keep up a façade for his possible – or maybe actually very probable – houseguest.

_‘Any sign of Eddie?’_

Richie sighs. “They’re asking after you… I don’t know if you’re reading this. It’s fine if you want to. You’d be in on this too, if you had a phone – wait, do you? You’ve gotta tell me next time you – y’know, show up?”

Somewhere down the hall outside his apartment, someone else’s door opens and closes. It’s so quiet that Richie only hears it because you could literally hear a pin drop in his kitchen.

To Ben, he just says, _‘No.’_

God, he misses him, and it only took one night for that to happen. He’s fucked if it takes another three weeks or more to see Eddie again.

The typing bubble appears and disappears several times before permanently vanishing; he gets a text from Bev, instead. _‘Eddie wouldn’t just disappear on us.’_

Ben finally texts again to add, _‘Just give it time.’_

_‘Maybe we can do something to make it easier,’ _Richie suggests, responding to Ben knowing both of them will be reading it, anyway. He’s doing his best not to consider the possibility of Eddie just vanishing into the ether for long enough to let it freak him out. _‘Like use a weegee board or something?’_

_‘…You mean Ouija?’_

“Changed my mind,” Richie says immediately, “don’t read this part.”

-*-

“_Finally_,” Eddie groans when Richie leaves his apartment with a couple of reusable shopping bags in hand. “I was ready to assume you were just determined to starve yourself. Who the fuck eats breakfast in the middle of the afternoon, Richie?” In fact, if it had been up to Eddie, Richie would’ve already ordered something in, or at least driven instead of walking – or at _least_ stopped at one of the restaurants they pass outside _instead _of going the whole several blocks it takes him to get to an organic foods market. Which is kind of a surprising choice for Richie, but Eddie’s willing to believe this just happens to be the closest grocery store to his apartment.

He _definitely _should’ve taken their friends up on their offer to bring him a few things, but Eddie’s holding out hope that they’ll have guessed Richie was bullshitting them and will still “coincidentally” have some fresh fruit or something for him when they come by.

He’s looking forward to it even if they don’t.

It’s the middle of the workday and a Friday to boot, so there aren’t a lot of people around when they step inside, and Richie’s able to make his way through the store mostly unimpeded by crowds.

Eddie’s glad for that. He puts a steadying hand on Richie’s upper arm the moment he notices him start to drag his feet and rub discreetly at his temples, but he’s painfully well-aware of how little support he can actually offer him in navigating a store or staying on his feet.

Richie, somewhat predictably, opts for a shopping cart instead of a basket and puts just a little more of his weight on it than most people normally would. He perches his phone on the little tray by the handle, and Eddie’s eyes are on it even before he opens the notes app to start typing.

_‘Talking to an invisible person wouldn’t be the weirdest thing that’s happened here, but still,’ _Richie tells him.

“Yeah, please don’t,” Eddie says. “I couldn’t take the secondhand embarrassment – and I say this as someone who’s had to watch you do stand-up like a dozen times.”

Richie cracks a little smile, and Eddie’s left to wonder what kind of answer he’s imagining from him.

The market turns out to be less expensive than a lot of the ones back in New York, although not by much. Richie keeps a running commentary going as he wanders back and forth through the store.

_‘Wow, remember these?’ _He nods at a box of Bagel Bites, but doesn’t actually get them, which totally tracks because even Richie knows better than to assume those things would sit as well in a forty-year-old’s stomach as they did in a kid’s.

_‘Is it basically bullying if I eat this in front of u?’ – _yes, because he says that about a box of Oreos, which he drops into the cart anyway.

“Oh, so we’re _not_ avoiding junk food,” Eddie grumbles. “Awesome, totally makes sense, you know, because you’re still sick and that’s _so_ nutritious.”

_‘U know I’m actually ok at cooking but maybe I’ll just buy a bunch of these anyway,’ _Richie writes after pausing in front of a line of frozen TV dinners. Eddie takes the bait without hesitation even after Richie adds, _‘Just to mess with you.’ _People _really underestimate _how many of those things are recalled every year for contamination with foreign material like glass _and _food-borne illnesses, _most of them _serious. Eddie doesn’t know how you could even enjoy eating one without being too distracted by the possibility of fucking dying.

That’s technically not even a concern for him anymore and it _still _makes him squeamish.

“Five bucks says you’re rambling at me right now,” Richie says under his breath when they round a corner and find no other customers in their immediate vicinity. He’s smiling like he does when he’s not really thinking about doing it. “Maybe next time you can” – but he cuts himself off midsentence.

“Can… help you shop?” Eddie guesses. He glances around and still doesn’t see anyone close enough to have really noticed Richie, so he isn’t sure why he stopped.

He doesn’t worry right away, because it’s… a nice thought. Eddie starts to say something about putting together a shopping list for him – because this really would’ve been so much quicker if he’d had one – until Richie pulls out his phone and types out what seems to be a pretty long message. By the time he finishes, his expression has gone from grim straight to holding-back-tears tense.

He leaves the app with the note open on his phone and doesn’t speak or write anything else until he’s picked out a few fruits and vegetables and moved on to the check-out counter with his shoulders drawn and eyes downcast. The way his whole demeanor has gotten all closed-off and tired seemingly out of the blue is enough to make Eddie dread reading whatever he’s written.

But he has to, or he won’t know what to say, either, if – _when _he’s able to talk to Richie again.

He looks it over while the cashier busies herself with ringing them up: _‘Sorry for assuming you’d even want to. U could be bored to death rn for all I know. Hope ur not but I’m probably way less interesting than twin peaks. …sorry to keep reminding u of this, just once and I swear I’ll shut up about it. Just wanna say I’ll try to quit dragging u into my stupid fantasies or whatever. I let it get away from me’_

If Eddie’s still capable of feeling cold, he thinks that’s what washes through him as he finishes reading through the note. Richie’s pretty quick to delete it and stuff his phone back into his pocket, like he doesn’t want to deal with any of it anymore.

Like he doesn’t want to deal with Eddie.

He still opens the doors to his apartment wide and holds them just long enough for Eddie to take some comfort from that, but every time Richie starts to brighten up as he’s putting groceries away and making himself a quick milk-and-cereal breakfast, Eddie can practically see him rein himself in, and that fucking _hurts _to watch.

“I like it when you let it get away from you,” Eddie tells him when he finally finds his own voice again. His eyes feel wet. “I…”

I liked grocery shopping with you. I want to do it again. I want to help you carry the groceries back, and I want to have little arguments with you about what to have for dinner.

He’s had plenty of those with his _wife, _but his protests never changed what they wound up doing. It wasn’t like it is with Richie – like it would be, if Eddie were alive enough to share in that banter and laugh and have the kind of fun he’d forgotten was possible somewhere along the line.

“Hey, Eds,” Richie says, not turning around after setting his empty bowl in the sink, and for a moment Eddie wants to surge forward and touch him and tell him everything he can’t find the words for, but Richie is just talking to him – not responding. He says, “I really hope you’ll do what’s best for you and not just me. Think I’d be worse off if you – if I knew you were forcing yourself on my account.”

“I’m not, idiot,” Eddie says on a shaky exhalation. The threat of tears would be obvious to anyone, if anyone could hear him.

“I’ll still talk to you,” Richie says. “Maybe more when my throat’s all the way better. If it’s too annoying just say so when you can, or – I mean, Bev and Ben are coming by. Fuck,” he sighs, hand pressed to his forehead, “what am I even doing. I just – don’t want to lose you as a friend,” and when he tries to blink back tears he just winds up sending several rolling down his cheeks, “when we fix this, if we can – and I don’t know if you even want that but I keep thinking if you’re here maybe you _do_. I can’t fuck it up. I’m really trying to not make it weird.”

“You aren’t fucking it up,” Eddie tells him, already at his side with his arms wrapped uncomfortably around him. There’s no give, no melting into him or reciprocating the touch. “You could never fuck it up, Rich, and you’re not making anything – I wish you’d stop fucking _saying that_.”

Richie laughs a little tearily. “It’d be out of character if I wasn’t annoying, right? That’s what you get for picking the Trashmouth to haunt.”

“Stop,” Eddie snaps, trying to squeeze him tighter. “Stop talking about yourself like that.”

Richie’s apparently done, anyway, because Eddie is forced to let go of him when he turns around and makes a beeline for the bedroom. He mutters something Eddie can’t quite hear before the door swings shut behind him.

This time, he doesn’t come back to open it until hours later.

-*-

Richie can hardly focus on Ben and Bev when they drop in a little while after his nap. He feels like he’s had more than enough sleep, but not nearly enough crying to get everything out. He’s not even sure he _wants _it all out, except it makes talking about Eddie in a detached way really fucking hard.

For all he knows, Eddie didn’t even follow him to the grocery store, because why would he? He’s probably just sticking around to make sure Richie’s okay because he’s been the most obviously fucked up about Eddie since before they all left Derry, and Eddie’s a really good guy. Good enough to overlook Richie being kind of a creep if he thought he needed someone with him.

_You know, I…_ worry about you? Could that have been it?

Fuck. Probably – and here he is leaving his bedroom door open, as if his married best friend would ever just crawl into bed with him. If he did, it’d be because he’s so fucking isolated he’ll take anything he can get, and Richie has no business taking advantage of that just because he can’t help projecting his ugly desires onto someone who can’t do anything to contradict them.

He can tell Ben and Bev have both noticed something’s up with him; he’s being too quiet and spending too much of their conversation with his face buried in a giant cup of tea – courtesy of Ben, at Beverly’s suggestion. “He even makes good tea,” she’d explained with a bright smile, already drawing one of three different tea tins out of a neatly stamped paper bag for Richie to have.

The tea probably _is _good, but Richie’s too congested and distracted to taste it much.

Ben is the first to ask, “So, did something happen, or are you just missing him?”

Richie sucks in a little breath and lets it out in a burst. “Yeah.”

“To both?”

“Nothing happened, I’m just an idiot.” Richie stares down at his hands and the cup he has them wrapped too tightly around. He tries to force his breathing to be slower and deeper; it only kind of works, and it makes him feel like he’s about to start crying. Fuck it – “He heard what I told you guys.”

“About being g–” Ben starts, but Beverly elbows him gently in warning when Richie’s attention snaps briefly back up to them. “Sorry.”

“‘S fine. It’s pretty much… the last thing we talked about when I saw him.”

“How did that go?” Bev asks.

“He – I don’t know, we didn’t have a lot of time. He apologized.”

“Oh,” Bev says, impossibly quieter – and then she jumps a little and looks across the table, beside Richie. She doesn’t have to say anything for Richie to guess, and it’s stupid and selfish but he’s immediately jealous because he didn’t hear or see anything this time.

Ben immediately puts a steadying arm around Bev, as if the gesture had already become something unspoken and understood between them. Richie has to look away for just a second to stifle the bolt of longing that runs through him head-to-toe at the sight of it. He’s not used to _wanting _like that – just another side effect of playing house with Eddie’s ghost, maybe.

“What?” he asks impatiently when Beverly’s brow furrows and minutes pass and she still hasn’t talked.

“Well,” Beverly says at last, “he’s definitely not with Bill.” She doesn’t sound surprised.

“What did you see?” Ben asks. “Eddie?”

“I heard him,” Bev says, and nods at Richie, “from there.”

Richie glances sidelong at the empty chair next to him, but he’s careful to keep his hands to himself. “And?”

Beverly smiles apologetically at him. “Um, well, he wasn’t really talking. It was more of a… groan?”

“A groan?” Richie parrots. “What, like he’s in pain?” He’s too confused to be worried, but only as long as Bev’s next answer doesn’t tip him over the edge.

“He sounded frustrated,” Beverly decides after another thoughtful pause, and Richie relaxes. “I don’t know, it was just a moment. Sorry, Eddie,” and she really does look sorry, but that isn’t all. She looks like she’s still mulling it over; Richie doesn’t dare, because he’s gotten lost enough in his own head as it is.

Ben is the first person to speak up, shy but optimistic, “Well – that’s a good sign, right? That he’s doing okay?”

“Or I’m driving him crazy,” Richie mutters.

“Maybe,” Beverly says with an amused smile, “but he’s still here.”

“Yeah, ‘til you guys leave.” Richie gestures at them with a halfhearted wave of his hand.

Ben and Bev exchange a sheepish glance. Beverly says, “I don’t think he’s gonna want to be around us in tight quarters.”

“Yeah, it’s one room,” Ben says, already going red but doing an impressive job of keeping his voice steady.

Richie grins at them. “Well, look at you two!”

“Stop,” Ben says without a lot of heat.

“Beep beep, Richie.”

-*-

“Hey, Richie?” Bev says as she and Ben are on their way out the door. “One more thing.”

Richie eyes both of them warily, but still says, “Yeah?”

“I don’t know what Eddie thinks of your feelings for him” – Richie, to his credit, doesn’t flinch at the words, even if his breath does catch and his cheeks get a little pink – “and I don’t think you do, either.”

Richie opens and closes his mouth a few times, but he looks like he’s at such a loss that he can’t even come up with a joke to deflect the comment. What he settles on, finally, is, “I don’t think he hates me for it…” He doesn’t sound entirely convinced, which worries Eddie at least as much as everything else.

“But you think it’s some kind of… burden on him?” Ben asks, out of his element but trying.

Richie’s eyes dart to the door behind them, still cracked open mid-exit; Beverly closes it without a word.

“…It’s – it’s worse than a burden,” Richie says after a long break. His eyes are wide and he’s starting to tremble a little. Eddie gently grabs his forearm and starts tracing little patterns there with his thumb, the way he did when Richie was sick – well, sick_er_ – and could still feel it. He stares expectantly at Bev and Ben, willing them to say at least part of what he wants to, starting with “no the fuck it isn’t” and ending with all kinds of things only Eddie himself can say.

Bev crosses the few feet between them and pulls Richie into a hug he doesn’t return; Ben follows right on her heels, enveloping both of them while Eddie moves to press himself gently against Richie’s back. He can feel the telltale shaking of tears starting. Eddie doesn’t feel far off from that, himself.

“It isn’t,” Ben says, “whether he feels the same way or not”—

“No way,” Richie snaps. “He doesn’t. He’s _married_. To a _woman_. He even said he was gonna go back to her, and he only stopped because he was …worried about me. He’d be there now if I hadn’t – if it weren’t for me.”

Eddie feels something in him give a painful lurch at that, because _is _– or he _was, _technically – and he had been, and maybe he _would _be there now if things had happened just a little different, but – but he hadn’t _wanted to_. He’d been so fucking relieved when Richie asked him to stay. Could Richie really not tell?

Bev gives Richie a gentle squeeze. “Just – try, okay? Try to let him tell you how he feels about it instead of jumping to conclusions.”

“Fucking yes – _thank you,” _Eddie groans into Richie’s shoulder, ignoring the wave of anxiety the words also send crashing through him. He doesn’t know how he’ll tell Richie any of it, but he’s tired of Richie telling him what _he _thinks is going on in Eddie’s head. Of course he’d be trying to figure it out, but he’s so far off base that it’s starting to feel like a farce.

Better yet, Beverly adds, “And I don’t think he’s as uncomfortable with it as you think either way, or he wouldn’t still be following you around.”

“You make me sound like a lost puppy,” Eddie complains. Add that to the pile of comparisons Richie can’t be allowed to come up with.

“Maybe he just doesn’t want to be a third wheel,” Richie says weakly. “I’m basically permanently single, so it’s just like having a roommate who never shuts up.”

Eddie bangs his head gently against Richie’s back the way you would a particularly _thick fucking wall _and says, “Beep beep, Richie.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“…I don’t know,” Richie sighs, slipping out of their impromptu group hug and putting some distance between himself and his friends. “But I do know I have a Ouija board to order online, and you two have a long-ass flight to sleep off – and before you say anything,_ yes _I’ll try to worry less. I still hate talking about this, alright?”

“Alright,” Ben and Bev both say.

Bev stops one more time, but this time it’s not to talk to Richie. “And Eddie?”

Eddie snaps to attention in spite of himself. Richie makes a soft noise beside him. “Beverly?”

“Be honest with him,” Beverly says. “And don’t hurt him, or we _will _kick your ass.”

Eddie blinks past his surprise. Is this what Richie feels like every time someone gets a little too close to figuring him out? “I”—

_– think I’ve already done that –_

“No, no, no, you won’t – okay, we’d do everything to help him – _you,_” Richie corrects in a rush, “no matter what you want to say to me.”

“Yeah, we’d do everything to help him and _then _we’d kick his ass,” Ben says, which surprises everyone in the room – even Bev, who lets out a startled snort-laugh that immediately has Ben’s attempt at a serious face dissolving into a happy grin.

When they’ve finally said their goodbyes and actually left after doing so, Richie closes and locks the door with a small smile on his face, too.

“You’re like, the world’s worst eavesdropper,” he tells Eddie after a moment. He looks like he wants to say more, but he settles for, “…Do you wanna watch a movie or something?”

“Definitely!” Eddie beams.

Richie’s smile widens a little, and some tension goes from his shoulders. “Think I maybe almost caught that one? Unless you said no and I just really wanna make you sit through a movie of my choosing, anyway.” He makes an attempt at evil laughter – not very evil, but still weirdly charming – even though he ultimately picks one Eddie’s sure Richie knew they’d both enjoy.

It’s been years and years since he’s seen it, but _The Lost Boys _is still just as fun as he remembers it. He’s not even really upset that he can’t tell Richie to shut up and just watch the movie; the running commentary he keeps up through the whole thing just makes it that much more comforting to sit there with their shoulders pressed together, laughing at the same jokes and pretending to keep up a back-and-forth between themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually think TV dinners are delicious but am totally also a serial recall googler.
> 
> Also, ultra-side-note, this chapter marks the first time I’ve actually used the word 'ghost' in this fic unless you count last chapter’s _Ghostbusters_ reference. There is a reason for this but it’s a stupid reason. You will see and you will <strike>probably not</strike> be impressed.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone! I apologize for posting this chapter a day later than my personal 2-3 day goal would have had it come, but, as is apparently typical, this one is (much) longer than the other chapters, so I think I've made up for it! I was busy planning and then hosting a Halloween party, and I wanted to give _this_ one the attention it deserved.

Nine more days pass uneventfully. Over a week and _nothing_, no conversations – difficult or otherwise – with Eddie, which by extension means no opportunities to get the gentle rejection over with so that Richie doesn’t have to keep dreading it.

He _hopes _it’ll be gentle, anyway. The longer he has to go without talking to Eddie– or, rather, without Eddie talking to _him –_ the easier it is to convince himself it’ll be just the opposite, and to occasionally forget to maintain a respectful emotional distance between himself and Eddie, when he lets himself talk too much and think too little.

He wishes Eddie had had time to finish saying whatever he was going to say that night in Seattle, not because Richie would have taken it any better sick and drunk but because then at least he wouldn’t have to keep smothering the part of him that prefers to dwell on things like ‘yeah, it wasn’t’ and Eddie telling him it doesn’t bother him that he’s gay – _but he could’ve just been saying that to calm me down_ – and the way he looked when Richie told him he could stay, when he responded “I do” like it was all he wanted in the world–

And then he has to remind himself to stop, that just because he wants Eddie like that doesn’t mean anything for Eddie, who’s busy spending day after day just trying to feel somehow connected to the world around him.

So Richie does his best to help with that, and if it turns his feelings into a confusing mess, that’s his business.

Unsurprisingly, everyone else is more relaxed about the whole ordeal than Richie is. Mike still hasn’t nailed down a departure date, but they all assure him that that’s probably for the best; it’s too hard to know at what point they’ll be able to do something for Eddie, or if that’ll even _happen_, or how long it’ll take when it does, and he can’t be away from his new job indefinitely when he does finally make it all the way to California.

The occasional suggestions of Eddie’s presence – always gone too fast for any of them to do anything about it – are at least enough to reassure them that Eddie is still there, if not exactly reachable. Richie’s pretty sure everyone is worried, but for him it’s basically a full-time job just to keep it under control. It’s like every bit of energy that had been going toward grieving Eddie just got redirected to worrying about him. And he’s still somehow finding plenty of time to miss him, too.

Richie and Mike are the only ones who can’t do at least some of their work remotely, so there are plenty of opportunities for the Losers to put their heads together at various coffee shops – and once, mostly as a joke on Richie’s part, a wildly overpriced juice bar. Bev and Ben do whatever it is that big-name architects and fashion designers do on the computer all day, Bill works on his next novel, and Richie tags along more often than not only to spend hours staring down a blank Word document before giving up and Googling stuff like “best real ouija board” and “how do séances work.”

He’s already ordered a Ouija board, but he figures it can’t hurt to make sure there isn’t a _better _one out there – or at least one that’ll arrive faster than 10 to 15 business days. He still feels like attempting a séance is a stupid idea, no matter how much Mike says it couldn’t hurt to try. Richie doubts he really believes in it, either, but… he keeps it on the backburner, for if they get really desperate.

The others only occasionally say anything to Eddie directly, and it’s almost never when they’re all out in public. They’ve all arrived at a sort of unspoken agreement to be discreet about the whole haunted-by-the-ghost-of-their-deceased-friend thing, but Richie privately thinks it’s also because it’s harder to be constantly aware of the presence of someone you can’t see or hear or touch unless you’ve seen or heard or touched them as much as Richie has.

It’s not their fault, but Richie worries that Eddie will feel alone in the group if he doesn’t get enough acknowledgment from everyone, so Richie keeps up the habit of typing little notes to him when they’re all talking – small asides and jokes and questions that are only semi-rhetorical, and all of them meant just for Eddie.

“Does he have any new ideas?” Bill asks one of the many times Richie pauses mid-conversation to type something into his phone. It’s Sunday, and they’ve all long since stopped paying attention to whatever tasks they set out to complete when they first walked into this café.

“Who?” Richie asks without looking up. He’s aware that all three of them have stopped talking to look at him, but before he cracks a joke to lighten that tension he wants to get his message finished. It only takes a second.

“Mike?” Bill says, like it should be obvious and he’s just confused that Richie didn’t get that.

“…I don’t know, I haven’t talked to him since this morning,” Richie explains. They’ve all switched to mostly using a group chat because the constant back-and-forth was getting too time-consuming, but that means that anything Richie knows, they’d be pretty likely to know, too. “He’s probably still at work.”

Bill glances questioningly at Richie’s phone, obviously not sure if he should keep asking about it or just drop the subject, and it takes until that moment for Richie to figure it out.

“Oh,” he says, hiding behind a nonchalant smile, “I’m just texting my” – fuck, he can’t say _girlfriend_, not with Bev and Ben listening and _absolutely _not with Eddie most likely around to hear it when he knows he’s talking about _him_, and _fuck_ he wishes that weren’t his immediate go-to when he’s put on the spot. He flounders for a moment before he finishes with a weak, “uh, it’s – it’s for Eddie.”

“Like for him to read?” Ben asks.

“Yeah,” Richie says, forced-casual. He almost envies Eddie his invisibility right about now.

Ben looks genuinely curious. “Does he?”

“Dunno,” Richie admits. He can feel his face heating up despite his best efforts. “It’s not that important.”

“I bet he appreciates it,” Bill offers, and Richie _really _wants to sink into the scratched-up wooden floor beneath him. He’s already embarrassed, but this feels like a danger zone he’s not prepared to enter after one too many syrupy cold brews.

Beverly is the one who gives him an out just in time by pointedly changing the subject to Bill’s novel. He’s been stuck on a tricky scene since yesterday, and the Losers – but mostly Richie – have been making increasingly dumb recommendations to him on how to fix it. Richie’s personal theory is that he’s already nixed the scene entirely and moved on to something else, but doesn’t have the heart to tell them to stop. That, or Richie could have a future as a novelist and Bill’s holding out for more of his incredible ideas.

Every time he comes home from one of those outings, Richie half-expects Eddie to have finally caved and gone home with one of the other Losers, and every time he’ll be proven wrong when he catches the tail end of a word as he’s cooking dinner, or an impossible shift in the air around him as he sits and reads or watches TV.

He’s glad three of his friends – four, technically – are around to keep him company; he’s starting to get a little stir-crazy as it is.

“You know,” Richie says as he finishes setting Netflix up for the night – part of a routine he’s kept up since that first night back home, and one that he hopes Eddie likes, even if he _is_ currently leaving him to sit through several episodes of _Bob Ross. _He can’t resist fucking with him a _little_; he’s doing his best – and totally failing – to pretend that he genuinely thinks Eddie _won’t _be either bored to tears or severely annoyed by it. “Bill might really fly off to Derry and go diving into the first manhole he sees if you don’t show up soon.”

He’s joking – mostly. He lets his comment hang in the air long enough to give Eddie time to answer if he wants to before he adds, “If you haven’t tried, you should totally see if you can possess people. That kind of potential prank material shouldn’t go to waste.”

Richie leaves the remote in its usual place, then, and goes to bed. After a few bad nightmares and sleepless nights spent behind a closed door, he’s taken to leaving it open just enough that he thinks Eddie could slip inside if he really wanted to. Not an obvious invitation, but not… _not _one.

He likes the dreams he has when he can imagine Eddie is there with him. Eddie doesn’t have to know that, so Richie tells himself it’s okay.

-*-

Eddie decides to make a little game of it, just for the practice.

When he isn’t slipping into his and Richie’s old, comfortable pattern of joking and teasing and witty comebacks, he starts making an active effort to tell Richie bits and pieces of everything he wants to say to him – which is a little like Russian Roulette, because if Richie happens to hear any of it, Eddie will be forced to finish what he’s starting. He thinks maybe that would be good, except that he’s also learned a few things about himself since leaving New York for Derry, one of which is that he’s capable of more than he’s known for the longest time; even without forcing his own hand, he thinks he can do this. He _wants _to do this.

He knows it won’t be as easy when he has to actually look Richie in the eyes and tell him everything all at once, but it helps him sort himself out and get used to doing it in the meantime.

“I wouldn’t mind that,” he says when Richie accidentally calls him his –_ sort of – _in front of all their friends. He thinks for a moment, then corrects himself: “I’d _like_ it.” He kind of feels like he _is _already. Richie’s.

The first time he says he’s gay out loud, he does it alone, huddled in front of the TV in the early, early hours of the morning and not really paying any attention to what’s happening on the screen. He’s already missed too much to be able to follow the story, anyway; he’d been busy lying with Richie until he was sure he was asleep. Eddie thinks the waiting to finally be able to talk to each other again must be starting to wear Richie down, too, because it took a little longer than it usually does. He spent a lot of time tossing and turning.

Maybe that’s why Eddie also stayed a little extra just to watch the slow rise and fall of Richie’s chest and trace patterns along the backs of his hands. He likes to think it helps keep the worst of Richie’s nightmares away.

Saying it out loud, though… he gets why Richie’s so afraid to, because just doing it under his breath with the murmur of the TV to drown it out leaves Eddie jittery and nervous for the rest of the night and a good portion of the next day. It feels like something big should be about to happen at any moment, like the clouds around him will part and some basic constant of the universe will change irrevocably.

It doesn’t. Richie cracks jokes and teases his friends, who join him and Eddie for dinner at Bill’s. Ben and Beverly steal quiet moments when they think no one is looking, and they all finally get to meet Audra, who immediately hits it off with Beverly and Richie over a joke at Bill’s expense that Bill takes in stride. They split a bottle of wine and leave two extra glasses out – one for Eddie, and one for Stan.

It’s all so warm and safe and _mundane _that something clicks back into place for Eddie, and in a way, it _does _change something fundamental for him.

-*-

“So, I… hope you don’t mind…” Richie begins over morning coffee, eggs and slightly burnt toast some ten or eleven days after his premature return to L.A. He slept okay – weirdly okay, all things considered – but he still feels drained. “I’m thinking of just staying in today.”

He doesn’t know what he’ll actually do. Nothing he couldn’t just as easily do from an uncomfortable chair with little to no cushioning in one of the city’s dozens of coffee shops and bakeries. Except maybe sleep some more.

He mulls that over as he mechanically finishes off the rest of his breakfast. There’s a restless energy buzzing just beneath the surface of his skin, but everything he wants most impatiently he also has no control over.

“Wish you could tell me if you don’t wanna be stuck cooped up here all day,” Richie sighs, rinsing his plate and taking the half-drained coffee with him out to the couch. “I feel bad.” He flips the TV on but doesn’t open any of the streaming apps to actually start something.

He knows he shouldn’t, but he still strains to catch some kind of response – a reassurance, he hopes, or a request that Richie at least have one of the other Losers come by so Eddie can have something to do today.

That’s a thought, Richie thinks. He thumbs at his phone for a minute, but the only message he actually winds up sending just says, _‘Sorry guys, didn’t sleep well. Gonna sit this one out.’_

He waits long enough for the others to respond with a few understanding texts and promises to save a seat for him in case he changes his mind, then shuts his phone off and curls up on the couch.

Richie doesn’t know how long he lies there getting slowly drowsier and latching on to that sensation over how much he misses Eddie, but it’s only when he falls briefly and uncomfortably asleep that he drags himself back up to his feet and down the hall into his bedroom, glad he hadn’t bothered to change into actual clothes yet.

So what if he’s only been awake for an hour or two, tops? He might as well have a nap if it’ll give him something to do with himself.

-*-

Eddie watches Richie eat and tries to imagine what the food would feel like in his own mouth; he does that a lot, so much that it’s starting to become a new anxious habit – the sort of thing he feels stupidly compelled to do over and over again even though he _knows_ it won’t help reassure him in the slightest.

Just the opposite, really; the more he overthinks it, the less confident he is that he can remember what coffee tastes like, or what it’s like to bite into a forkful of hot food. Richie’s cooking usually smells pretty good to Eddie, but it never makes his mouth water or his stomach growl or any of the other things he has to remind himself to associate with hunger. It all feels so distant, a collection of impersonal facts like an iceberg drifting further and further from the visceral memory of actual sensation.

On mornings like this – quiet ones, especially – Eddie thinks of himself the same way, as a chunk of ice slowly detaching itself from the experience of being human. He worries that the way he is now is starting to feel normal to him, and that terrifies him. It terrifies him that Richie and the others might start to think of him as nothing but an occasional glimmer of a presence. That he’ll become more of a concept than a person, that he’ll stop being himself without even noticing it’s happening. That at that point, he won’t even care.

“I’m thinking of just staying in today,” Richie tells him, and Eddie says, “I’m afraid of forgetting what it’s like to be in love.” He forgot once and it cost him decades of his life. Forgetting again feels like it would cost him himself.

It hasn’t happened yet, though; when Richie forgets to turn the TV off or return his empty coffee cup to the sink, alarm bells go off in Eddie’s head. Richie’s just as out of it as he is. He hasn’t taken a nap in the middle of the day – much less before noon – since he was sick. But he doesn’t _seem _sick – just… worn out.

Fortunately for Eddie, Richie also forgets to close the door to his bedroom, which means that for once, Eddie doesn’t have to force himself through a narrow opening to follow him inside.

He doesn’t wait for Richie to fall asleep before he climbs into bed alongside him. No sooner has Richie dropped his glasses onto the nightstand and settled into the blankets than Eddie’s hand finds its familiar spot over Richie’s heart, a single point of warmth for Eddie to bask in as Richie’s breathing slows once more.

Eddie’s own breathing stutters to a halt some time later when Richie’s hand drifts up to rest over Eddie’s. He searches Richie’s face for something – surprise, maybe, or quiet amusement – but he just looks asleep. Calm and unaware.

He continues to look that way when his hand closes gently around Eddie’s, raising it just enough off his chest that Eddie feels his pulse through his hand instead. After so many days of near-constant loneliness, just that is enough to make Eddie almost cry. _Richie’s_ touching _him, _instead of the other way around. He’s so desperate to keep the moment alive for as long as he can that he doesn’t even consider waking Richie until Richie’s other hand finds his shirt and uses it as a handhold to pull Eddie flush against his side.

Eddie lets out a semi-indignant squawk on instinct, but he goes without a fight. He’s too busy marveling at the vivid sense-memory of racing hearts and cheeks going bright red – none of which happens to him, obviously, but it’s like he’s two half-steps away from really feeling it, anyway.

Even more so when Richie rolls over enough to face him, their joined hands framed between their bodies and Richie’s hand still clenched loosely in the bloody fabric of Eddie’s tattered shirt. Eddie holds his breath for a very long time, afraid to risk putting an end to a moment that feels precariously fragile. When he finally dares to move his free arm to drape it loosely – and oh so slowly – over Richie’s waist, he stares in quiet awe at the way the fabric of Richie’s T-shirt moves under his weight.

“Finally,” he whispers. Richie face scrunches up for a moment in response; Eddie decides to keep his voice down a little longer.

A little longer turns into a lot longer. Their legs slowly tangle together, and Richie winds up wrapping one arm around Eddie, too. He never quite lets go of Eddie’s hand, although his grip loosens enough that their fingers are just laced together on the sheets between them – the comforter long since kicked to the end of the bed. Eddie absolutely soaks up the contact. Like a cat in a patch of sunlight, he thinks, giddy, and he wouldn’t even mind if Richie teased him for it.

Richie’s passive expression becomes a content smile at some point. It’s the sweetest Eddie’s ever seen him look asleep. He contemplates trying to make a grab for Richie’s phone to snap a picture of it, but odds are Richie would delete it as potential blackmail material; he’s drooling a little – which should gross Eddie out but actually just makes him want to lean in for a kiss – and his hair is a mess.

He doesn’t want to pull away, anyway. He doesn’t want Richie to wake up to that; Eddie’s only now becoming aware that he’s gotten himself into something of a predicament, because Richie’s got to wake up to _something_, and Eddie probably couldn’t slip gracefully away from him without waking him even if he wanted to.

That smile doesn’t leave Richie’s face even when he starts to stir awake enough to slur a quiet “I love you.” Eddie thinks his heart might burst, and he can’t keep a deliriously happy smile off his own face. He doesn’t even have the presence of mind to panic when Richie’s eyes flutter open and settle dazedly on him.

Everything happens very quickly after that. Richie scoots close enough to close the short distance between their foreheads, pressing them gently together and letting out a contented sigh, and then in the next instant his eyes are snapping open and Eddie can see the realization cross his features even before he lets out a broken stream of apologies and curses.

“_Fuck, _Eds – Eddie, I’m – I’m so sorry, I don’t – goddammit”—

“Rich,” Eddie says quietly, sitting up more slowly than Richie did and doing his best to look as calm as possible despite the guilt twisting in his gut. “Richie.”

Richie’s turned away from him, but he can still see the dark flush spreading all the way down his neck. If he isn’t crying, he’s on the verge of it.

“Richie, it’s okay. Please. I need” – deep breath, that’s supposed to help him steel himself – “I need to talk to you.”

Richie feels around for his glasses with a shaking hand and doesn’t say anything. Eddie is briefly terrified that he’s already missed his opportunity and left things between them even worse than they’d been before, but then Richie mumbles, “I – I’m so sorry. I don’t – I didn’t know – I’ve never”—

“Don’t,” Eddie interrupts. “Don’t apologize, okay?”

Richie chances a glance back at Eddie. His eyes are red-rimmed and glistening with un-shed tears. “Then what do I do?”

“You… just listen,” Eddie says, and then he gathers up as much courage as he can and adds, “and come back here. I” – and he spreads his arms and smiles in a way he hopes doesn’t look too nervous – “I’ve been looking forward to another hug?” Fuck, that wasn’t supposed to sound like a question.

Richie looks at him like he’s just grown a second head, but after another moment’s hesitation he does cross the bed and gingerly put his arms back around Eddie. “Is this okay?” he whispers, and Eddie knows he’s crying.

“Yeah, Rich, it’s okay.” He tightens his grip on Richie, and Richie’s arms almost go slack before he lets out a quiet sob and pulls Eddie a little closer to him.

“I missed you,” he whispers. “I really missed you.”

“Missed you, too,” Eddie says around the lump in his own throat. “Thanks for being such a loudmouth.”

Richie laughs between shivers and tears. “One of my many talents.”

Eddie brings one hand up to the back of Richie’s head and shifts them so he can press his face close to Richie’s throat. He can feel Richie’s breath catch, and he stiffens slightly.

“Eddie, what”—

“I – I have a lot to say. I’ve even practiced,” Eddie says shakily. He watches the muscles in Richie’s neck twitch slightly as Eddie’s breath gusts across his throat; he swallows thickly and doesn’t reply, but he does relax by degrees as Eddie talks. “An apology shouldn’t’ve been the first thing I said to you back in Seattle. I just… panicked. You’re a lot braver than me.”

“Not true,” Richie says thinly. He moves his hands to Eddie’s shoulders and pulls him away just enough that they can look each other in the eyes. “I wouldn’t even be alive if it weren’t for you.”

Eddie smiles at him. “I was pretty badass back there, wasn’t I?”

Richie laughs hard enough that his eyes close and a few more tears slip through. “Yeah,” he agrees when he finds his voice again, “you were like a fucking gladiator.”

“They should’ve cast me in _300_,” Eddie says, and then he shakes his head. “Fuck, stop distracting me. Just – listen. I’m going to apologize once more but only because I think I really freaked you out and it wasn’t how I meant to start this conversation.”

Richie’s expression darkens and his eyes fall with his hands back down to his lap. “You don’t have to apologize. I was the one acting like a fucking octopus.”

“Yeah? Do you also think you’re the one who dragged me into bed with you in the first place?” Eddie says impatiently. “Come on, Rich. I was there because I wanted to be. I had plenty of chances to move before you woke up. I’m not – I’m not sorry for that. I’m only sorry if I crossed a line I shouldn’t have.”

Richie’s brow furrows, but at least he’s looking at Eddie again. “You – you didn’t, that’s why – I mean I guess it’s why I leave the door open? But why would you”—

“Because, I – I – fuck, sorry, give me a minute.”

Richie does, and now it’s Eddie who avoids eye contact. Carefully, slowly, he says, “I’m gay.”

Silence.

“If you don’t say something I’m gonna think you didn’t hear me and I really don’t think I can do that again soon,” Eddie says in a rush, still not looking at Richie.

“I heard you,” Richie says, sounding strangled. Eddie forces himself to look up at him, and finds that he’s started crying again – if he ever really stopped to begin with. “…Really?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “So that’s – that’s step one.”

“Step one,” Richie repeats, something like anticipation rising in his tone. Eagerly – but like he doesn’t dare let himself get _too _excited, he says, “Okay. But you’re married?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “Well.” He stupidly hadn’t planned for this to come up, and it’s… a lot to get into. So instead of trying, he jokes, “It is supposed to be ‘til death do us part,’ right?”

“…You didn’t have to die to leave your wife, you know,” Richie says, taking the obvious cue to lighten the mood. “They have this thing called divorce. All you have to do is spend months and tons of money in court fighting over who gets the fine china.”

“Sounds like I got the easier deal, then.”

Richie snorts, but he looks sad again when he says, “It doesn’t sound easy.”

Eddie nods, eyes drifting from Richie’s face down to his hands. He really wants to take them in his own, but he doesn’t, yet. “It isn’t. You’ve done a lot to help, though. Just for the record, you – you _do _drive me crazy, but it’s a good kind. I’d be a lot worse off if it weren’t for you.”

Richie’s eyes have gone comically wide behind his glasses; Eddie’s reminded, inexplicably, of the coke-bottle lenses Richie used to wear. Richie tries to play it off with a little shrug and a shaky attempt at a joke, just a little too casual. “So you even liked the Bob Ross stuff?”

“Fuck you,” Eddie laughs, “Bob Ross is soothing.”

“Damn,” Richie groans, “next time I’ll just have to pick something worse.”

“Worse than _Friends?_” Eddie asks, skeptical. “I doubt it.”

Scandalized, Richie says, “Hey, that’s a classic!”

“It’s overrated,” Eddie informs him. “…And I’m getting off track again.”

Richie gives him a searching look. “…Step two?”

Eddie takes a slow breath in and out. “Yeah. Do you remember the last thing I said to you?”

“That you chose to come with me after – after everything you probably saw in Derry?” Richie stumbles over the words Eddie knows he’s thinking of saying. “You, uh, already knew about – that I”—

“Easy,” Eddie says lightly. “It’s my turn. And no, not that.”

“Your turn to what – wait, it wasn’t that? Did I miss something?”

“No, Richie, I mean before.” He gives him a significant look and picks self-consciously at the edge of his jeans.

“…Back in Seattle?”

_You know I –_

“Back in Derry, okay, jeez.”

“About fucking my mother,” Richie says in sudden understanding. “Uh, yeah. So?”

Eddie tries not to cringe. “Yes, that,” he hisses. “It wasn’t what I meant to say, alright?”

“No shit,” Richie tells him.

“What?”

“I mean,” Richie says, shuffling his weight on the bed, “They’re terrible last words, even for you.”

“‘Even for me?’ You’re the one who makes those jokes all the time!”

“It’s funnier when I do it,” Richie says cockily. “It’s tradition.”

“It is not, asshole!”

“Eds,” Richie says, smothering a laugh but looking almost as nervous as Eddie feels, “getting sidetracked again?”

Eddie fidgets more with his jeans and takes several deep breaths. It feels like nothing in his lungs, but the gesture is familiar and that’s soothing. “I wanted to say a lot of things. I didn’t think they’d be my – the last thing I said before” – and he pauses to gesture weakly down at himself – “and I – I chickened out.”

“And Seattle?” Richie guesses.

“…Same thing.”

“And it isn’t about… about being gay?” Richie practically whispers the last part. His cheeks are still bright pink, almost red.

Eddie eyes him thoughtfully. Out of nowhere, he finds himself saying, “You never said that before.”

“What – gay?” Richie frowns. “You said it first.”

“But you came out first,” Eddie says carefully, afraid to step over a line Richie isn’t ready to cross and not entirely sure where that line is yet. “It’s probably the only reason I was able to… actually think about it.”

“Oh,” Richie says. Then, putting on a brave face, “About coming out?”

“About liking men,” Eddie clarifies. “I never – I guess I always thought I couldn’t be both. Me and also gay, I mean. I had _thoughts, _but I just – I told myself everyone does, or at least that not thinking too hard about them meant they weren’t really a part of me. That was just – someone else.”

Richie has to take several slow breaths in and out this time before he answers. “I always wanted to be that,” he says, almost too quietly for Eddie to hear. “Someone else, I mean. But I couldn’t. I can’t.”

Eddie moves to say something, but Richie stops him with a raised hand. His mouth is working, but it takes him another several minutes to finally say, “I’ve tried for – since before the clown, even. It was just a lot of lying and now I’m” – he imitates Eddie’s earlier gesture, this time at himself – “this. I barely know who the fuck I even am anymore.”

Eddie hesitantly brings a hand up to the new round of tears starting to trail down Richie’s cheeks. When Richie doesn’t flinch under the touch, he gently wipes them away. Richie’s eyes slip shut.

“…I think I know what you mean,” Eddie admits softly.

Richie takes a deep breath and catches Eddie’s hand in his own. He doesn’t let go. He says, “What were you going to say?” and when he opens his eyes again he doesn’t look away.

_It has to be now, _Eddie thinks, _now or never. _He takes Richie’s other hand in his free one and gives it a squeeze for bravery before he begins. “That coming back to Derry helped me remember that there was a time when I could imagine something better than an unhappy marriage to someone who treats me just like my mother.” Richie lips quirk up at that, but he doesn’t interrupt. He’s barely breathing, hanging on every word Eddie says. “That I missed you and – and I love you, too.”

Richie’s breath hitches. “Really?”

“Really,” Eddie says. He feels so much lighter all of a sudden, but with Richie grounding him, he still feels strong enough to add, “I could’ve followed Beverly home when she saw me in Derry, but I didn’t. I didn’t even consider it. I wanted it to be you. I really – _really _wanted it to be you.”

Richie pulls Eddie into another hug. He’s crying again, but there’s a wide smile on his face. “Really? You swear?”

“I swear,” Eddie reaffirms, rubbing lightly at Richie’s back and starting to cry a little, himself. “It killed me watching you beat yourself up about this. I’m sorry it took me so long to tell you.”

Richie shakes his head so fast Eddie thinks he could give himself whiplash. “I love you,” he cries. “So fucking much. I – that’s the first time I told you.”

“You said it when you woke up,” Eddie teases gently. “You’re way sappier than I thought, you know that?” He reaches up to trail a hand through Richie’s hair again, and this time it sends a shiver up Richie’s spine so strong Eddie can feel it pass beneath his fingers. He pauses. “You like that?”

Richie just makes a little noise, muffled against the top of Eddie’s head.

“Hey, Rich?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I – there’s something else.”

Richie doesn’t let him go, but he makes another little noise, a go-ahead. Eddie thinks he’s noticed the change in Eddie’s tone, but he’s too blissed-out to worry about it.

He’s adorable. He’s happy. Eddie doesn’t want to do this.

“What if we can’t fix this,” Eddie makes himself say anyway, and this is the part that wrenches at every vulnerable corner of him in a way that only hurts. “What if I – I mean, since when does anyone come back from dying?”

“You did,” Richie says, but Eddie can tell he knows what he means.

“This is important, Richie,” Eddie insists as Richie’s hands make fists in the back of his shirt. They aren’t far from the bloody wound in Eddie’s back, and chest-to-chest he’s probably leaving smears on Richie’s clothes. “It’s only – I have to be fair to you, okay? I can’t even look at myself without – I mean, does looking at me… do I look too – is it too gory,” he stammers, not quite managing to make it sound like a question. “I _know _I’m still me, but it’s – it’s disgusting. It’s a constant fucking reminder. It’s been weeks and nothing about me ever _changes_,” he says, knowing his voice is positively dripping with all the venom he’s been directing at himself for every one of those weeks. “I don’t even need to shave because my hair doesn’t grow, I don’t remember what it’s like to be hungry, and I don’t even really _need _to breathe. The more time passes, the more obvious it’ll get that I can’t age like you. Touching me is probably like touching a corpse” – Richie flinches at that, but doesn’t pull away, so Eddie relents and just says, “I know you guys want to do something to help, but I can’t be careless with you, Rich. And I don’t know if I can believe things will be that easy.”

“Eds…” Richie sounds pained.

“I’m sorry. I know this is a lot to throw at you. I wish – I wish things were different.”_ I wish it hadn’t taken me dying to finally tell you the truth. I wish I had a real future._

“It sounds like you think about this a lot,” Richie murmurs into his hair. Eddie shivers despite himself, which earns him a satisfied little hum from Richie.

“Every day,” Eddie whispers. “Every fucking day.”

“Will you promise to try to believe what I’m about to tell you?” Richie asks.

“Promise to tell the truth, then,” Eddie says.

“I promise,” Richie says, and to Eddie’s relief he sounds at least as earnest as Eddie needs him to. Eddie nods at him to go ahead. “Well then, first off – a lot of this,” and Richie breaks up their hug so that he can rub gently at a spot on Eddie’s cheek, just above his stab wound from Bowers, “is nothing a shower can’t fix.” Eddie wrinkles his nose at him, and Richie gives him a fond smile. He surprises Eddie by lowering his hand to rest, feather-light, directly over the hole in Eddie’s chest.

This time, he doesn’t say anything right away. He just looks like he’s mulling something over until finally, he says, “Most of my nightmares are about this. One second I was – I don’t even know where I was,” he admits. “I don’t remember that part very well. And then I was on the ground and you were talking to me, and I didn’t even have time to try to understand what you were saying before everything just – stopped. All that – blood, it was… it’s probably my worst fucking memory, and I have a lot of those to choose from.”

Eddie can’t get any words past the tears building in his throat and behind his eyes. He just looks helplessly at Richie and tries to keep his shaking under control.

“Hey,” Richie says, too fucking gentle. He uses his other hand to muss Eddie’s hair. It’s enough to shake some tears loose from Eddie’s eyes. “…I’m not done, Eds.” He thinks for a moment, then says, “I know you said I’m a sap, but I – I’m really bad at this. I never – the whole talking about my feelings thing is. Still new.”

Eddie laughs, which is a mistake because it starts up a round of sobs he can’t stop.

“Shit,” Richie says, and pulls him down so that he’s practically lying in Richie’s lap, face pressed to his stomach. “Sorry. Guess Ben’ll have to kick _my _ass for hurting _you_, huh?”

Eddie just shakes his head after he tries and fails to articulate anything beyond a few jagged syllables.

“…I was going to say, seeing you like this doesn’t make me think of any of that,” Richie says. “It makes me think… I don’t know. It’s just you. It makes me think of everything I love about you.” He exhales, long and slow. “God, I can’t believe I’ve said that this many times in one sitting.”

“But what if you only see me like this once every several weeks?”

“Can’t hear you, Eds.” Richie’s still playing with his hair, with both hands now. It feels nice, so Eddie only moves enough that his voice won’t be so muffled by Richie’s stomach when he repeats himself.

“Then I’ll miss you,” Richie says honestly. “But it’ll be kind of like a long-distance relationship, right?” He hesitates, and his hands go still against Eddie’s head. “Um – we _are_ talking relationships – a relationship, right? If we aren’t, I’m sorry for”—

“We are,” Eddie says, cutting him off before he can start down that road again. “I want that. I haven’t let myself think too much about the future, but that’s – I know I want that with you. I mean, I would – I just need to know it’s not going to make things harder for you than they already were.”

Richie lets out a long, slow exhalation. “Wow.”

Eddie starts to sit up, but Richie holds him in place, gently enough that he could still shake him off if he wanted to. He doesn’t. Instead, he huffs, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Gimme a break,” Richie complains. “This is – I never thought anyone would say that to me, okay? Much less you.”

That brings Eddie up short. “Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh.’ You’re killing me, Eds.”

“I’ll consider it if you don’t answer the question. Will you be okay if it turns out I’m stuck like this? Or if I - I mean, we don’t know that much about this, Richie. What happens if I – if fixing it means that I die for real?”

“Isn’t that always an issue?” Richie asks. “I could die tomorrow, too.”

“I’m not even alive now,” Eddie reminds him. “Quit dodging the subject.”

“I’m not – much,” Richie amends sheepishly. “No, I wouldn’t be okay. I’d be fucking miserable. You… saw that. But I already promised you and everyone else that I’d try to take care of myself, and I’d keep that promise even if you weren’t around. Alright?”

Eddie peers up at Richie, still not quite satisfied. “What about the whole not aging thing? And – and we don’t even know if other people can see me when you can, that could be hard to deal with. Plus, even in normal long-distance relationships, you can still _talk _to each other. With me it’s like… I might as well not exist at all. I can’t even fucking be there when you need me. That’s terrible for anyone in a relationship”—

Richie sighs. “Now I get why you were frustrated with me.”

“It’s important!” Eddie defends himself maybe a little too loudly.

“Eds,” Richie says, “there’s literally nothing about you, or _this,_ that makes me want you any less. You won’t make anything worse for me. If I’m going to wind up sad either way, I want to have whatever I can with you in the meantime.”

Eddie honestly feels like he has no choice but to believe that, because Richie’s face immediately goes beet red and he has to break eye contact to recover from the admission. It’s somehow still jarring, seeing this side of Richie. He wonders, idly, what kind of person Richie would be if he hadn’t spent most of his life afraid to be honest about anything.

“…Thank you,” is all Eddie can think to say.

“Don’t mention it,” Richie mumbles.

“You swear you’ll say so if you change your mind?”

“No, because I won’t,” Richie says stubbornly, eyes snapping back down to meet Eddie’s. “You’re – you know. I wouldn’t.”

“I’m what?”

If Richie’s face could possibly get any redder, Eddie thinks it would, but it looks like half the blood in his body is circulating well above his heart as it is. Eddie’s about to take pity on him and tell him he doesn’t need an answer when Richie squeaks a few words and then goes completely silent.

“…I think that was important,” Eddie finally says, “so I don’t wanna pretend I heard it. You don’t have to say it again if you don’t want to. You look like you’re about to have a stroke. _Please _don’t,” he adds as an afterthought, as if asking someone not to have a stroke would do anything to stop it from happening.

“You’re,” Richie says, and swallows. Eddie gets the distinct impression he’s counting down from ten in his head. “You’re the love of my life. Don’t even say anything,” he adds in warning when Eddie blinks and starts to reply.

Eddie waits for Richie’s breathing to even out before he tries again. “That – that tracks,” he finally says, and then he swears under his breath and reaches up to catch Richie’s cheek in his hand. “Let me try that again.”

Richie just nods, his skin hot against Eddie’s, so Eddie does his thinking aloud, in real time. “I never loved anyone else,” he says, “and I felt… _things_ for you. Before I knew what they meant. Or what to do with them. So – so I hadn’t thought about it, but – if that’s a thing?”

“I think it’s a thing,” Richie says so sincerely that Eddie feels like his heart should be absolutely thundering in his chest.

“God, you really are a sap,” he says. “Have you always been this fucking adorable?”

It takes Richie a long time to recover from that. “You are,” he says finally, somewhere between weepy and elated. “You are trying to kill me.”

“The love of my fucking life? Never,” Eddie says, and pats his cheek.

And it’s then, with Eddie’s head still resting in Richie’s lap, his hand resting against Richie’s cheek and the narrowing distance between them filling with something electric, that Richie’s phone starts to ring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *dude from midsommar voice* DOES HE FEEL LIKE HOME TO YOU
> 
> Also, my apologies for getting so far behind on replying to everyone's kind comments again! I read every single one of them and think about them A Normal Amount, and just want to say thank you very much for sharing your thoughts and encouragement with me! I'll get back to responding to them post haste!


	17. Chapter 17

It’s actually Mike’s idea for them to meet up at a café that’s a little closer to Richie’s place than any of the others they’ve tried lately; it’s not like any of them really have a favorite spot yet, anyway, and Richie’s abrupt decision to stay home has them all worried enough that they probably would’ve tried to stick around nearby even if Mike hadn’t called Bill to suggest it.

Beverly thinks he still feels bad about not being here to help in person, but the hours he’s been putting in after work every day just reading up on afterlife mythology and anything else that might help them is beyond invaluable. She has to remember to tell him that – again. She’s seen how Richie hangs on every idea Mike has; when you get right down to it, Mike is probably the only one of them doing anything material for Eddie, unless he’s right about his theory – “Not exactly a theory, just a thought,” according to him – that just being here together has some chance of helping. “It worked for us when we fought It,” he’d said when he mentioned it, “so it would kind of make sense.”

Well – there’s Mike and there’s Richie. He’s picked up so many new habits all for the sake of trying to keep Eddie comfortable that Beverly’s almost certain that between the three of them – Bill and Ben and her – they haven’t even picked up on half of them. Bill worries that he’s wearing himself out doing it, but Beverly thinks his building stress has more to do with the long, long wait.

If it were her in Richie’s place – and God forbid, if it were Ben in Eddie’s – she thinks holding doors, pulling out chairs, writing messages and sneaking long looks at the empty spaces a person could occupy would be sort of a comfort. It’s sad, but it’s sweet. It’s something to hold on to, like a faded postcard or a worn yearbook page. None of them would’ve expected it of Richie, but the care he takes with Eddie suits him oddly well, anyway.

She wonders what Eddie thinks of it, sometimes. She hopes he can see how important it is. She hopes it helps him, too.

Richie and Mike have Eddie covered, and for as long as all the rest of them can do is wait, they’ve got Richie covered.

That’s why, after several hours with no texts or calls from Richie, Ben finally puts the finishing touches on the rough draft of a design just as Beverly is doing the same and says, “What do you think of grabbing drinks?”

Beverly smiles and asks, “On a Tuesday?”

Ben matches her smile and then some. “Okay, one drink.”

“One drink sounds good,” Bill agrees. “I’ll call Audra.”

“And I’ll call Richie,” Beverly says, because she knows that’s half the point of this plan in the first place. “He’s probably bored to death by now.”

Richie picks up faster than he usually does, but he doesn’t say anything at first – which is also unusual for him, but in a decidedly concerning way. There’s a sound from the other end of the line like fabric rustling, and a lot of static.

“Richie?”

She has time to get scared enough that Ben and Bill both notice. Bill’s halfway through asking Audra to hold on when Beverly finally hears Richie’s voice on the other end of the line. It’s distant, like he’s holding the phone away from himself, so Beverly holds a hand up to signal that she needs quiet.

“You take it.”

“Me?!”

Beverly gasps around the hand that flies to her mouth just as Richie says, “Because I’ll start crying again if I do it! Just say hi!”

“But”—

“Eddie?”

Bill, who’s been halfway out of his seat since the moment Beverly’s mind first started running through every worst case scenario, doesn’t even bother packing up his things before he’s halfway out the door. Ben tries to call him back, but Beverly grabs his arm and holds him beside her before he can get up to chase him. Even she isn’t sure why she does it – if it’s because she thinks one of them _should _get a head start down there, and it might as well be Bill, or if it’s because she needs Ben _here _in case she doesn’t get an answer the second time she says that name.

“Eddie,” she whispers, and Ben leans in close to listen. “Honey, is that you?”

There’s more shuffling, briefer this time, and then suddenly Eddie’s voice is a lot closer.

“…Hey,” he says, and Beverly can hear her own fear reflected back at her when he asks, small and nervous, “Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” Beverly says immediately around a rush of tears. She says it several times, distantly noting the slight echo that implies she’s been put on speakerphone before she remembers to ask, “Are you okay?”

There’s a brief pause, a relieved sigh, and then Eddie says, “That’s kind of a loaded question.”

“Are you?” Beverly insists. “And Richie?”

“He’s right here,” Eddie says, and there’s something in the way he says it that reminds her of every gentle thing Richie’s done for Eddie these past several days. “We’re… okay. Yeah.”

Beverly doesn’t have as much time as she’d like to think about how happy Eddie sounds when he says that. “Bill’s on his way over,” she says, already collecting both their laptops as Ben follows suit. “He’ll get there a little bit before us, okay? Can you – do you think you can hang on?”

There’s another awkward pause before Richie comes on the line and says, “Your guess is as good as ours.”

“I don’t have any control over it,” Eddie says from somewhere beside him. “I’m sorry.”

She hears Richie whisper something – a gentle reassurance, she’s fairly sure, but it’s too quiet for her to be sure. Bill is nowhere in sight by the time Ben and Beverly make it out onto the sidewalk, so Ben pulls out his own phone and calls them a ride. Traffic’s not too heavy, yet, but it’s getting there; Bev wonders, wildly, if they should try going on foot instead. She half suspects that’s what Bill did.

They’re definitely attracting some attention, looking as frenzied as they probably do, but Beverly’s too focused on the call to worry about that yet. She can hear Richie and Eddie talking to each other in hushed enough tones that she misses some of the exchange in between climbing into the car that pulls up to the curb in front of them and trying to drown out the sounds of traffic with one hand pressed to her ear.

“…could’ve fucking told you they’d want to come,” Eddie says.

“…just _not _say hi… misses you!”

“I know, Rich… to everyone, too, but we aren’t…”

“…_never _be finished with… have something else in mind?”

“Yeah, dude, a fucking shower, like you _said_”—

Beverly clears her throat as delicately as she can, which turns out to be more than enough to silence both of them. “Do you need us to wait a bit?” she asks as neutrally as possible.

The silence on the other end of the line stretches on, and for a moment Beverly’s afraid – but then there’s a much louder chorus of yeses from Richie and Eddie, awkward and enthusiastic, and she smiles.

Ben nudges her and gives her a questioning look, so she asks them to wait a moment and sets her phone down long enough to tell him, “They’re still working things out. We should let Bill know to wait, too.”

Comprehension crosses Ben’s face, and right on its heels, hope. She lets him borrow her phone when he half-extends a hand toward it. “Hey, guys,” he says as soon as he has it pressed to his ear. He’s smiling, but after a moment that expression falters and he says, “Um – Eddie?”

There’s another long pause, and then he says, “No…” He gives Beverly a pained look and mouths, ‘I can’t hear him.’

He passes the phone back to Bev, who starts to ask Richie if he’s okay again but only gets as far as the first syllable of his name before she cuts herself off. Richie’s already talking, and not to her.

“…and – and Bev can. I mean, do you… _feel _any”—

Eddie interrupts, sounding rattled. “I don’t feel different,” he says quickly. “I never do.”

“Eddie,” Beverly sighs, relief washing over her. “Hey, you’re still here?”

“Can you tell him I’m sorry?” Ben says at the same time as Eddie chokes, “Bev?”

“Ben says he’s sorry,” Beverly repeats. She also gives Ben’s knee a reassuring squeeze and lets her hand linger there until Ben covers it with his own. They trade a quiet look; Ben only looks away so that he can text Bill a warning not to rush in before Richie and Eddie are ready. “So I guess it’s just Richie and me?”

“I guess,” Eddie echoes. He still sounds distressed; Beverly feels like she’s only just starting to _really _understand why Richie makes such an effort to acknowledge his presence all the time. She can’t even imagine how delicate this entire situation must feel to Eddie, how strange it must be to be able to talk to one person while another wouldn’t know you were there at all if they hadn’t been told. “Tell him it isn’t his fault. It – it’s me. It’s whatever’s wrong with me.”

Bev can hear Richie protesting in the background; she agrees with the sentiment, but she still repeats the message so Ben can hear it. Ben looks like he likes it about as much as the rest of them, so Bev tells Eddie, “It isn’t your fault, either. It won’t be forever.”

It sounds like an insultingly weak platitude the second it’s out of her mouth, but Eddie sniffs a little anyway and says, “I really hope not.”

-*-

By the time they’ve ended their call with Beverly, all three of their friends are basically – or in Bill’s case, literally – already _at _Richie’s apartment building. Richie doesn’t waste his breath on any comments about how suspiciously fast they’d made it to him. He doesn’t have to; Eddie laughs beside him when they get the sheepish texts letting them know that they’ll all be waiting in the lobby and to take as long as they need in the meantime. Richie has to assume someone’s already on the phone with Mike filling him in as much as they can; if they weren’t, he almost definitely would’ve called by now.

Bill is obviously holding himself back from asking why they need to wait at all; Richie’s able to gather that much just from the handful of texts he sends the group. He tries not to dwell on what Ben and Bev might be thinking, and even less on what they might’ve told Bill to pacify him. He knows they’d never out him without his knowledge or permission, but the fear still nibbles at him anyway. That habit’s gonna be hard to shake, but even without that, he’d still be too newly overwhelmed to waste any brain cells on figuring out what he’s gonna tell them. He’s just grateful they understood the need for privacy without asking him to spell anything out.

Instead of any of that, what Richie chooses to say to break the brief, comfortable silence between himself and Eddie is, “You know, it wouldn’t kill you to share some of that optimism.”

The look Eddie gives him just _screams _‘I know there’s something else on your mind and you aren’t saying it,’ but he doesn’t pry – just sighs and clarifies, “Beverly’s?” Richie notices he hasn’t really stopped picking at the bedding – folding and unfolding it, kneading at it, poking and prodding – since the start of that phone call.

“And mine,” Richie blurts – and to ward off the testy look Eddie starts to give him, he hurries on, “I know, I know, I know. But it only took half as long this time for us to be able to talk again, right? And” – he gestures at Eddie’s hand buried in the poor, tortured sheets – “you can still do that just fine.”

Eddie blinks like he hadn’t realized what he was doing and starts to pull his hand back into his lap, but Richie intercepts and rubs idly at his knuckles instead. They really are dirty – a lot dirtier than Eddie would ever tolerate normally. It’s hard to miss the way his gaze flits from the dirt on his hands down to the light smears he’s left on Richie’s shirt and the formerly-white sheets between them.

“I don’t know, Rich. It’s… a lot to hope for. It would be a literal miracle.”

“Just like defeating a giant, evil space monster with our bare hands,” Richie reminds him. “Or you turning up in my bed one day to tell me you’re in love with me.” God, saying it still makes his head fucking _reel. _Just _thinking _it makes him feel like he’s about to explode. Will that ever stop? Richie doubts it.

Eddie smiles. “You got that right. I don’t know how you do it.”

Richie stumbles over a joke on his way to saying, “I don’t know either. I mean look at you. Fuck.”

“Ouch,” Eddie says in mock-hurt.

“_Not _what I meant,” Richie says, drawing his thumb up along the back of Eddie’s hand to the edge of his jacket sleeve. He leaves it there and gives Eddie one more long look. Not appraising, just… memorizing. Finally, he pinches dramatically at his nose and says, “But you _do_ need a shower” in the most nasally voice he can manage.

Eddie shoves playfully at him, but he looks thrilled. “Yeah. Yes. Definitely. Fuck,” he says as he climbs off the bed, “I’m _really_ looking forward to this.” He darts off in the direction of the hall closet before Richie’s even had time to climb back to his feet; by the time he makes it out to join him, Eddie’s already got one of his bags out and unzipped in the middle of the hallway.

“Sorry about the mess,” he apologizes absently as he rifles around in it for a clean change of clothes. “I’ll put it away after.”

Richie rubs at the back of his neck and doesn’t answer. It feels like it’s been ages since he put those bags away; at the time, it had been like he was setting up a shrine of sorts, and now he feels weirdly caught out. “I’m, uh… sorry I didn’t keep my promise?”

Eddie gives him a funny look. “Which one?”

“To send those back to your wife. I would’ve. Eventually.”

Eddie blinks. “Huh. I guess you did say that. You know, she’s probably had me reported as missing since before we even fought Pennywise? Twenty-four hours, and _bam!” _He shoves a gray polo deeper into the suitcase with a little more force than necessary to illustrate his point. “If you just suddenly mailed her all my shit without saying anything, you’d probably wind up being the number one suspect in a murder investigation.”

Richie shudders. “You have a point…” And then, because he’s an idiot and can’t just drop things, he also asks, “Does – does that scare you?”

“What?” Eddie asks, adding a black T-shirt to a small pile of fresh clothes off to the side. He even has a spare pair of shoes ready to go. Richie would tease him for it, but even he can’t deny that Eddie’s overpacking is coming in unbelievably handy.

“The – being missing. It would scare me,” Richie says, and immediately wishes he’d held his tongue.

But Eddie doesn’t seem bothered at all. Ben not being able to hear him had fazed him a lot more; he just shrugs and gathers his clean change of clothes into his arms. “I didn’t tell Myra where I was going on purpose, Rich. I don’t know, maybe some part of me wanted to get out even before I remembered much of anything.”

“Oh,” Richie says. He tries to come up with something else to add, but can’t.

He trails along after Eddie instead, following him as far as the bathroom, where Eddie sets his clothes neatly on the counter and turns back to Richie. “My toiletries bag was in your closet, right?”

“Uh, yeah – I’ll get it,” Richie says. He moves more quickly than the situation technically calls for and comes back with the bag in one hand and a fresh towel in the other. “Can I, uh…”

Eddie smiles nervously. “I think I’m good. Thanks, Rich.”

Richie takes an awkward step back out of the bathroom without turning around. Eddie’s hand is on the door, but he doesn’t close it. They stare at each other until Richie finally clears his throat and says, “So. Big occasion.”

Eddie snorts. “Fuck off. Just…”

“Yeah, if you… dematerialize or whatever”—

“Then I definitely won’t be following you out of this apartment until I can get some clothes on,” Eddie says, looking thoroughly embarrassed despite totally _not _blushing. “And please keep them ready. Actually…”

“Will do.”

“Okay, but,” and Eddie fidgets with the doorknob for a moment before blurting, “can I borrow something of yours?”

“Um,” Richie says, completely blindsided, “y-yes? Like what?”

“Swear you won’t make fun of me.”

“No promises.”

Eddie glares at him, but Richie doesn’t even have to fake the wide grin that puts on his own face, so of course Eddie caves first. “Fine. Asshole. Like one of your really loud things. A – a fucking Hawaiian shirt or something.”

Richie’s grin widens. “Oh?”

Eddie raises a finger in warning. “I swear to god, Tozier.”

“Oh my god, that’s so cute,” Richie gushes. “Really? Is my incredible sense of style just so inspirational that you”—

“I want a little part of you I can actually touch,” Eddie snaps at him, which thoroughly, albeit briefly, shuts Richie up. “Okay? I’m really, really hoping this will work and I’ll be able to hold onto it” – Richie starts to say something else, so Eddie just talks louder – “_and _I was thinking if I had something bright on it’d be… you know, easier to see me.”

“I really wanna kiss you right now,” Richie says before his brain can catch up with the rapid fluttering in his chest. When it does, he braces himself for the sudden rush of panic-induced nausea he always gets at times like this, but it never comes. Eddie just blinks at him, and he blinks back, and then Eddie swings the door more fully open and strides into Richie’s arms.

“Okay,” he says. “But let me shower first.”

“Okay?” Richie echoes. “You’d let me…?”

When Eddie starts to pull away from the embrace, his happy smile morphs into something mischievous; Richie barely has time to register that before Eddie darts forward again, raising himself up on the tips of his toes and grabbing up fistfuls of Richie’s shirt to keep himself balanced. Richie grabs his shoulders more out of surprise than anything else, but that doesn’t deter Eddie from pressing a quick kiss to Richie’s cheek.

When he pulls back from _that_, Richie’s hands are still resting on his shoulders and his eyes are wide. “I think so,” Eddie says, clearly aiming for cool nonchalance and instead landing firmly in the territory of nervous-and-hoping-that-was-okay.

Before Richie can give him an answer either way, Eddie rushes past him to the walk-in closet; by the sound of plastic clothes hangers clattering against each other, Richie assumes he’s looking for a shirt he can tolerate, and that won’t get him teased mercilessly – a futile effort, since Richie’s bound and determined to tease him no matter which one he picks. Richie doesn’t really have that many, so Eddie’s options are limited to loud, louder, and downright fucking obnoxious.

“That was a fucking sneak attack!” Richie calls after him.

Eddie peers out at him with a bright red shirt clutched in his hands. “So?”

“‘So?’”

“…Not good?” Eddie says, wincing a little.

Richie stares at him while he tries to gather his thoughts. “I’ve wanted you to kiss me since we were kids, how could it not be good?”

“Just say it wasn’t good or I’ll”—

“It was good. Seriously. Best half a second of my life.”

“Shut up, it was an impulse thing,” Eddie huffs as he brushes past Richie with the shirt clutched in his hands – but he looks relieved. He pauses again in the bathroom doorway, then clears his throat and says, “Rich?”

“Eds?” Richie says, imitating his tone.

Eddie just gives him a longsuffering sigh. “If it isn’t too much trouble, could you wait there for me?”

Richie grins reassuringly at him. “Yeah, I’ll be your personal bodyguard-slash-stalker if you want. Make sure no other ghosts try to get in.”

Eddie frowns at him but doesn’t say anything. The door clicks shut, and Richie hears the shower start up not long after.

He’s not sure how long he stands awkwardly outside the door before he decides to sit on the floor with his back pressed to the wood. It’s more comfortable, and it helps him hear when Eddie calls, “Ghosts?”

“Hm?”

“Why ghosts?” He doesn’t sound like he really cares what Richie’s answer is, but that’s fine, because Richie’s as relieved to have an excuse to keep up a stream of chatter between them as he thinks Eddie might be. This way, it’s easier to be sure they’re still on the same wavelength – or whatever it is.

Richie mulls it over for a second, anyway. “Dunno. Have you seen any others? Would you know if you did?”

“Other… ghosts?”

“Well, yeah.”

“That’s stupid,” Eddie says very sincerely. “Ghosts aren’t a real thing.”

Richie turns to stare at the door, as if he could see right through it and search Eddie’s expression for signs of sarcasm. “Are you fucking with me? You’re fucking with me, right?”

“Why would I be fucking with you?”

“If ghosts aren’t real, how the fuck do you explain _you_?”

There’s a brief pause, followed by, “I don’t know how to explain me. That’s kind of the problem, right?”

“Yeah, but?” Richie presses his back against the door again and makes a _you know? _gesture with his hands before he remembers that Eddie can’t see it. “What else would you call yourself, then?”

“I don’t think there’s a word for it,” Eddie says. There’s a sharp inhalation, not quite pained but definitely unnerved. When Eddie speaks again, it’s rushed and a little shaky. “Umm… zombie? Sentient reanimated corpse?”

“Jesus, Eds.”

“…Sorry.”

“Have you really not even _considered_ ‘ghost?’? You tick all the boxes! It’s obvious! And way less depressing than that other thing.”

“The other thing is more accurate,” Eddie mutters. Richie counts himself lucky that he understands him at all under the sound of running water.

“‘Sentient reanimated corpse’? That’s still just a zombie, dude. Or Frankenstein’s monster. It doesn’t fit at all.”

“Well, sorry,” Eddie says sarcastically. “Some of us stopped watching a ton of shitty horror movies when we left for college.”

The play-fight goes out of Richie so fast he’s surprised he doesn’t hear an audible _whoosh _accompanying it. He wishes they could’ve _kept _watching those shitty horror movies together, laughing and joking over them the way they did when they were teenagers high on the promise of escaping their backwards little hometown. The past twenty-some years of his life suddenly feel so desperately unfair that he can hardly breathe.

“…Rich?”

“I hear you,” Richie says, knowing he sounds choked up. “Just thinking.”

“Yeah?”

“Twenty-seven years is a really long time,” Richie says. “That’s all, I guess.”

Eddie hums distractedly. “You’re only forty.”

“So’re you,” Richie says. _Unfair, unfair, unfair –_

“It’s more of a glass half empty thing when you put it like that,” Eddie admits. He makes another little distressed sound, like half of a whimper, cut off before it can get too loud. “God, I hate this.”

Richie thinks he knows what Eddie’s talking about. “Does it hurt?”

“It hurts to _look at_,” Eddie says despairingly. “How am I supposed to just… come back from this, Rich? This – no one could walk away from an injury this bad without months of recovery, and probably like a dozen surgeries, and even then, it – I mean, fuck, no wonder my fucking heart isn’t beating, half of it’s probably _missing.”_

“Or you just lost a lot of blood and it looks worse than it is?” Richie offers.

“You can’t _see _it,” Eddie groans.

“Well,” Richie says carefully. “I think there’re some bandages in the first-aid kit under the sink in there. I could help you get them on, if you want.”

“This is definitely not a Neosporin-and-a-Band-Aid kind of wound,” Eddie says stiffly.

“There’s Neosporin, too,” Richie says, only half-joking. “I mean, unless you wanna go to a hospital. It’s worth a try, right?”

Eddie doesn’t say anything for a while, but Richie can hear him moving plastic bottles around in the shower. He doesn’t press the issue, content to let Eddie sit with the offer until he’s ready to accept or reject it on his own terms. Eventually, the water cuts off, followed by the soft clinking of the rings on the shower curtain as Eddie drags it open. Fabric rustling. A cupboard opening.

The bathroom door swings inward without any warning, so naturally Richie loses his balance and nearly takes Eddie down with him.

“Ow, fuck, say something next time,” Richie complains as soon as he’s righted himself.

“You could’ve told me you were sitting right there,” Eddie retorts. His arms are hovering protectively over his bare chest; Richie only catches glimpses of red behind them. Eddie won’t meet his eyes for more than a second, but Richie knows he knows he’s looking.

His hair is still damp, his skin paler without a layer of dirt to cover it, and he smells like the soap Richie uses – which is the first and only thing Richie can think of to say when he realizes he’s been staring for a little too long.

“What was the point of getting your stuff out if you were just gonna steal mine?”

Eddie gives him a perplexed look. The blue first-aid kit Richie bought years ago and has barely touched since is clutched tightly in one of his hands.

“The… soap,” Richie begins. He shakes his head. “Never mind. C’mere,” and he pats awkwardly at the floor across from him, right at Eddie’s feet. He’s put fresh socks on, but no shoes yet. “Doctor Tozier is in the house.”

“Kinky,” Eddie says without a trace of humor, and sits down in front of him. He keeps shooting nervous glances at Richie’s face before hurriedly looking just about anywhere else. Save for the jerky motion he uses to shove the first-aid kit at Richie, he doesn’t move his arms away from his chest.

“Were you expecting me to run away screaming?” Richie jokes lightly as he opens the kit and picks out a roll of gauze and the tube of Neosporin. When Eddie doesn’t say anything, he brings a hand up to Eddie’s bare shoulder to get his attention. It’s warmer than it was before; between that and the fact that the bathroom’s turned into a virtual sauna, Richie has to wonder how hot Eddie’d had the water. “Hey,” he says more gently, “relax. I’m not about to run, but I do need you to move your arms so I can see what I’m working with.”

Eddie gives him a look that’s verging on a pout. “You sure?”

“This comically small tube of Neosporin isn’t gonna apply itself,” Richie says.

Hesitantly and oh, so slowly, Eddie lowers his arms to his sides.

Richie sucks in a sharp breath before he can stop himself. It wouldn’t have occurred to him before seeing the wound cleaned up and unobscured, but it’s sort of surreal for it to be so still. There’s no blood gushing out of it, no gut-wrenching motion at the center of it. It’s a little red at the edges; Richie has no idea if that’s normal. He’d kind of thought he’d be able to see all the way through Eddie, but to his relief he just sees a lot of red – normal red, he’s pretty sure. Like someone hit pause on whatever the gore had been doing when Eddie died. He doesn’t think it’d still be that shade of red if it were doing the kind of thing zombie wounds do. _So there, _he thinks.

Eddie flinches. “See?”

Richie shakes a finger at him and says, “Yeah, it looks fucking awful, but you’re also really ripped so excuse me if I don’t know which thing to focus on.” It’s only half a lie; if it weren’t for the bloody stab wound, Eddie would be a perfect candidate for the cover of a sports magazine.

Eddie blinks back tears and shoots him an incredulous look. “You really do watch too many horror movies if this isn’t enough to make you puke. You puke all the fucking time.”

“That’d just be rude,” Richie asserts. “And that only happens when I get really freaked out.”

“It freaks _me _out,” Eddie whispers. He crosses and uncrosses his legs. “It’s not normal.”

“It’s a really bad injury, Eds, of course it isn’t normal,” Richie says, schooling his tone into something he hopes is matter-of-fact and not dismissive. “Can I touch?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, so Richie leans in close and presses his lips to Eddie’s uninjured cheek.

Eddie squeaks – actually _squeaks_ – and gives him the cutest deer-in-headlights look Richie’s ever seen. “Wh”—

Richie shrugs, fully aware of how badly he’s blushing. “Looked like you needed it.”

“Is – is it better when I’m warmer?” Eddie stammers. “_Am _I warmer?”

“Yeah, a little,” Richie says. “I’m guessing I’ll be in for a nasty surprise next time I get in there. How high did you turn the heat up, anyway?”

“As hot as it would go,” Eddie confesses. “It felt nice.” A little defensively, he adds, “I turned it back down when I was done.”

“You’re a terrible ghost,” Richie informs him. “Setting booby traps is like the number one ghost pastime. I can buy you some crosses to turn upside-down or something if you need practice.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “Beep beep, Richie.”

“Fine, fine. Shut up and get to work, I get it,” Richie gripes good-naturedly. He’s careful to broadcast his movements, right up until he’s about to touch the edges of the wound and Eddie stops him with a firm grip on his wrist.

“Could you – do you have gloves somewhere?” he asks nervously. “Sorry to be a pain, it’s just…”

“Unsanitary?” Richie guesses. Eddie nods. “No, that makes sense.” He rifles around in the first-aid kit for a second and comes up with a single pair. They’re a little tight on his hands, but they’ll have to do. “Is this better?”

Eddie visibly relaxes. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, Eddie Spaghetti,” Richie says. This time, when he brings a Neosporin-coated finger up to Eddie’s chest, Eddie’s only reaction is a sharp inhalation. “You okay?”

“Feels weird,” Eddie says with a grimace. His attention is focused hard on Richie’s face, and he’s gone stock-still. “You don’t have to do this if it’s too gross.”

“You aren’t gross,” Richie says. “And I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t think I could handle it. Here – lemme get a little on your cheek, too.”

Eddie turns his head to give Richie better access, looking nothing if not relieved.

“This one doesn’t look too bad,” Richie notes encouragingly. “You could still have a future as a male model, after all.”

“Right,” Eddie says, unimpressed. “I’ll start a portfolio, just in time for Halloween.”

“That’s the spirit,” Richie says. “Pun intended. Which reminds me, don’t let me forget to take a picture of you when this is done. For posterity.”

“With a shirt on,” Eddie tells him. “You can try, I guess.”

“Don’t think it’ll work?”

“I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to take those clothes off in the first place,” Eddie says, “so what the fuck do I know.”

The room goes quiet for a while, then, punctuated by the sounds of cream being applied to tender skin and the occasional surprised noise from Eddie.

Finally, Richie puts the finishing touches on the front side of the wound and asks Eddie to turn around. He’s used up a pretty good portion of the Neosporin already, but he still manages to get a decent layer applied to Eddie’s back, too. When he’s finished, he gives Eddie’s slowly-cooling shoulder a gentle pat to let him know. “Wanna try the gauze?” he asks when Eddie glances uneasily down at himself.

“Yes, please,” Eddie mumbles. “I think it’s supposed to be pretty tight.”

“Aye, aye,” Richie says. “Do I just tie it off, or tuck it in, or…?”

Eddie laughs shortly. “There should be tape in there, Rich.”

Sure enough. “Okay, uh, try lifting your arms?”

It takes some doing, but Richie manages to get the roll of bandages wrapped firmly around Eddie’s chest. He even has enough left over to wind some of the length up over his left shoulder in a dubious effort to keep it in place.

“Not bad,” Eddie says, getting back to his feet and testing the way his arm moves with the gauze wrapped around it. He’s noticeably calmer with the worst of his injuries cleaned and hidden from view. “Not as good as I did when I was thirteen, but you’re getting there. With just a little more antiseptic cream I bet you could even cure the common cold.”

“Fuck you,” Richie returns, “the medical field would be lucky to have me.”

“I don’t know about that,” Eddie says, already shrugging his shirt on, “but I know I am.”

“You can thank me by putting that on,” Richie says to cover the embarrassed flush that immediately spreads across his face. He gets to his feet a little more laboriously and glances pointedly at the red Hawaiian shirt still sitting on the counter beside them. “It’s a pretty nice one, actually. Got it at some vintage store, don’t even remember where exactly.” He’d been touring, of course, so it really could’ve been anywhere.

“You won’t miss it, will you?” Eddie asks uncertainly. “I can pick a different one if you’d rather.”

“‘Course I’ll miss it,” Richie counters. “It’ll be on you, and I’ll… miss you.”

Eddie laughs, surprised and definitely not missing the way Richie’s blush darkens that much more despite his best efforts to keep a straight face. “Smooth.”

“On second thought, don’t, you’ll probably give me a fucking heart attack,” Richie whines – which of course means Eddie immediately rushes to put the shirt on over his own. It’s big on him – it’s big on _Richie, _not that he’d bothered to tell Eddie that – and it falls halfway down his thighs. It’s hilarious and _so _fucking cute. “Jesus.”

Eddie just gives him a smug look.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may revisit this chapter tomorrow to make some little adjustments / give it a better proofread, but for now I figured I'd like to just go ahead and get it posted so I don't have to wait until tomorrow evening!
> 
> And also yes that was fully all I planned on doing by not having Richie previously mention ghosts to/around Eddie.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy! Very excited to say that [billybatsontrash/ItsyBitsyBatsySpider drew another really lovely bit of fanart for this fic](https://itsybitsybatsyspider.tumblr.com/post/188488111505/fluffifullness-i-made-another-ghosteddie-for)! Have a look!
> 
> Also, I'm going to update the tags on this fic to include a rough chapter estimate! I would like to really emphasize that it's a _rough_ estimate and very subject to change. For example, I didn't necessarily plan for the events of the past 2 or 3 chapters to be so sprawlingly long, but when I write dialogue and tender moments something simply possesses me.
> 
> Also also, I'm considering adding in chapter titles, just for fun! So... stay tuned?

It’s the closest Eddie’s felt to comfortable in his own skin since that first afternoon in Derry, blood-soaked and coated in dirt and scared out of his mind. It’s the safest he’s felt since – well, longer than that, in some ways. There’s still the tense, unstable edge of having to wonder at what moment he’ll suddenly slip back into the narrow gap between existing and not, but there’s also security in the way Richie looks at him. His gaze is like warm water and clean clothes and Eddie holds it steady as he reaches for him.

Richie gives him a nervous smile, apparently reading Eddie’s intent in the way his hands settle again on his shoulders. He’s tense, but he relaxes just a little when Eddie gives him a reassuring squeeze.

“Eddie,” he says, voice cracking a little. “I’ve never actually – I mean, I don’t really have…”

“Me, neither,” Eddie says. He still feels a bit like the cat that got the canary. Maybe it’s revenge for all the teasing Richie’s done through the years, or maybe it’s just the satisfaction of seeing Richie so open and honest, but he could look at Richie looking at him all day and never get bored. “You okay? You’re looking a little red.”

“Your fault,” Richie mumbles, and then – “Why’re you so confident and I’m…”

Eddie gives him a light tug, trying to signal that he needs him to lean in a little closer so that Eddie can actually reach. “I’m not,” he says, unsurprised that Richie resists the pull and avoids meeting his eyes. “I’m just waiting for you to realize you don’t like kissing a guy who feels like a dead fish.”

It’s meant to be a joke, but it’s too close to the truth to even really sound like one. Richie’s brow furrows, and with a pang Eddie realizes he looks like he could cry, given just a little more provocation. Shit.

“Stop that,” Richie says, his voice going whisper-quiet and desperate. He brings his hands up to either side of Eddie’s face and holds them there even after his eyes widen like he’s only just realized what he’s doing. “I’d love you even if you _were _a zombie. I have – I’m – I wish I could tell you,” and yeah, his eyes are welling up. Eddie lets the pad of Richie’s thumb trace a short line back and forth across his cheekbone, the one just above his stab-wound, and for a moment he forgets the wound is there at all.

It helps him stay centered as he tries to explain. “I still feel like I’m being unfair to you. Like you’re _you _and I’m something else, just… stealing moments I’m not supposed to have.”

Richie hums thoughtfully. His left hand drifts up into Eddie’s hair, and he says, “I think that’s just what being closeted does to you.”

Eddie’s thoughts stumble over that, because he really doesn’t want _Richie_ to feel like he does, not even close – but it still isn’t the _same_. “No, like when you hold me or – or kiss me,” he says, watching Richie tense up and only gradually relax again, “I should be warm, right? ‘Two hearts beating as one’ and all that?”

He half expects to get teased for being too corny, but Richie just sighs; Eddie feels the heat of it ghost across his face. “You worry a lot.”

“You don’t worry enough.”

“If _I_ don’t worry enough, bad news for therapists everywhere,” Richie jokes. “Anyway, you wouldn’t be a ghost if you were warm. I mean… you’re alive in every way that actually matters.”

This time, Eddie’s entire repetitive line of thought unravels. He loses track of it before he can get it back, so all he can come up with to say is, “Like what?”

Richie answers him with a kiss.

He gives Eddie more time than he could possibly need to read his movements and break away, but Eddie still manages to be surprised when their lips meet – when the hand on Eddie’s cheek slides down to his jaw to tilt his face up and Richie’s grip on his hair tightens just barely enough to pull. Richie makes a soft noise when Eddie responds by wrapping his arms around his waist and pulling him in close so their bodies slot together.

Eddie feels warm all over – even warmer than he’d felt under a stream of water so hot it should have been scalding – and he thinks there _is_ maybe _one _good thing about not needing to breathe.

Richie does, though. When he’s finally forced to come away for air, it’s with a soft gasp, and he doesn’t go far. Just presses their foreheads together and shyly murmurs, “Like that.”

“Okay,” Eddie says. He is, impossibly, just as breathless as Richie. “Okay, that was smooth.”

Richie beams at him. “Could you say that again on camera?”

“Don’t push your luck, asshole.”

“Really? Because I’m feeling pretty lucky.”

“Maybe we both are,” Eddie says, immediately relenting. “Thanks, Rich.”

Richie kisses him again, this time on the forehead, before he finally steps away. He still lets his hand linger on Eddie’s upper arm. “Hey, I get it. Everything’s weird and it’s important to you to feel normal. Obviously I want that for you. A lot.” He chews at his lip. Runs his tongue along it – which is enough to drive Eddie to distraction – then more quietly says, “I want you to be alive, and to heal up – and to blush when we do stuff like this, because that part just isn’t fair.”

Eddie can feel his smug grin returning. “I think it’s fair. And sorry to disappoint, but I’ve never blushed as much as you do, so that’s definitely not gonna change.”

Richie just rolls his eyes, as if to say _‘We’ll just have to see about that,’ _and Eddie thinks, _god, he makes me feel alive._

-*-

Richie wouldn’t mind if they spent the rest of their day hiding out in his apartment like a couple of lovesick teenagers, but he can tell Eddie’s anxious to get on with the official Losers’ Club meeting they’ve been putting off for well over an hour already. He even waves Richie off when he offers to help bandage up the gash in his cheek, although he does pocket enough tape and gauze pads to do it later.

“Do you think if you dropped one of those, I’d be able to see it even when I can’t see you?” Richie asks after a moment of contemplation. He’s been watching Eddie carefully pack his suitcases back into the closet; Eddie immediately guesses where Richie’s going with this and pauses long enough to look up at him.

“Only one way to find out. Do you have a little notepad or something I could borrow?”

“Yeah, and some pens,” Richie says, excited. He helps Eddie manhandle the last suitcase back into its spot in the closet, then leads him around the apartment, rifling through drawers here and there until he finds what he’s looking for. “I have a bunch,” he says, which is embarrassingly obvious now that he’s actually looking at the tightly-packed little drawer. “Most of them haven’t been used much. Or at all. It’s just easier to use a computer.” That’s mostly true, but still a weak excuse given that Eddie’s likely seen how little he’s actually gotten done whenever he’s tried to write new material at all those cafés.

Eddie looks over the array of variously colored notebooks and asks Richie the obvious question. “Why so many?”

“I used to write more,” Richie admits reluctantly. “Just kinda got out of the habit.”

Eddie hums, but doesn’t comment. He picks out several and thumbs through each of them to make sure there are enough blank pages to tide him over for a while; Richie knows from recent experience how fast a person can run through a lot of paper when it’s their only means of communication.

With a small stack of notebooks and no less than three pens tucked into his pockets alongside the bandages, the effect on Eddie’s small frame is nothing short of comical. Richie can’t resist the urge to tease him for it.

“A fanny pack would’ve looked _less _goofy, and that’s saying something.”

“Good thing your tent of a shirt covers it up, then,” Eddie retorts.

“No need to shoot the messenger. You’re the one who’s supposed to be all about planning ahead.”

“Oh my god, asshole, just call everyone up here before it turns out we made them cool their heels for nothing.”

Something in Richie shrinks from that casual reminder of how fleeting all of this could still be. “I could always just pretend I know where you are so they don’t get offended,” he offers, but he pulls out his phone in a rush anyway.

_‘We’re good. Sorry it took forever.’_

_‘We’ll be right up,’ _Bill immediately replies.

It only takes a moment longer for Beverly to send him a private message: _‘Everything ok?’_

Eddie makes a quiet ‘ah’ noise over his shoulder when he sees it. Richie is temporarily too busy mentally smacking himself on the forehead for not thinking of this earlier to actually formulate a question right away. Eddie spends just as long lost in thought, so when they both finally speak up it’s at the same time.

“Is it”—

“If you”—

“Sorry, go ahead,” Richie says. “Your call, obviously.”

“I was just going to say the same thing.”

“Wha – why would it be _my_ call? I can’t exactly talk about this” – he gestures between the two of them and feels his face heat up – “without outing you, too.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, like he hadn’t really thought about that part of it. “But doesn’t the same apply in my case? Bill and Mike don’t know you’re gay either,” and it’s amazing how okay he is with hearing Eddie say that – okay enough that he forgets he’s supposed to answer, and Eddie’s hand finds its way to his because his sudden silence probably worries him. He adds, “If you’re half as excited about it as I am, I want you to be able to talk about it with someone if – _when_ I can’t be there.”

“But what about _you_?” Richie asks, painfully aware of how little time they have left to discuss this _very important little detail _in private. “I think I’ll survive keeping this to myself if it makes you uncomfortable. I mean – I don’t even know if _I’m_ ready to tell anyone, and I’m already out to two whole people besides you.”

“One of whom was more of an accident,” Eddie points out with a little smile.

“Eds…”

Eddie sighs. “Okay, yeah – it feels like a big step. And I guess it would be nice to tell them myself – or together with you, actually.”

Richie’s heart trips into overdrive. “I’d like that.”

“Even if it meant also telling Bill and Mike?”

Richie nods, but he knows he’s not doing a very good job of hiding the sudden surge of anxiety that hits him the second he considers it as a real possibility. Eddie gives his hand a little squeeze, opens his mouth to say something else, and is promptly cut off by a knock at the door.

“Just a second,” Richie calls, heart still hammering. “So?”

“So we’ll play it by ear?” Eddie suggests, already moving ahead of Richie to get the door. “Whatever feels safe for you, I’ll back you up, and if I – if I even _can_, I might try saying something just about myself.”

“You could always write it?” Richie suggests.

Eddie stage-whispers, his hand paused on the doorknob, “Of course. ‘I’m gay – love, Eddie.’ That wouldn’t be weird at all.”

There’s another, gentler tap on the door. Richie makes a split-second decision to press a hand to the small of Eddie’s back before he pulls the door wide open and they’re left standing face to face with a trio of their closest friends.

Beverly is frowning down at her phone – Richie had entirely forgotten to send even a vague reply, after all – but the moment she looks up to say hello, the words die on her lips and her eyes fill with tears. Eddie’s all wrapped up in her arms before anyone else has a chance to move.

“Hey, Bev,” he says, overwhelmed but apparently relieved. Richie can hardly blame him for that; Ben and Bill look like they’re trying to do complex calculus in their heads – although on second thought, Ben might just be able to do that – which doesn’t bode half as well as Beverly’s reaction.

“You’re really here,” she sobs. After another moment’s passed with no one quite daring to say anything, she holds Eddie out at arm’s length and gives him a careful once-over. “You look better.” She doesn’t comment on the Hawaiian shirt, but Richie knows she’s noticed it, and probably filed it away for later discussion.

“I feel better,” Eddie tells her. His gaze drifts back to Richie, who’s smiling encouragingly at him. He visibly hesitates before giving him an apologetic look and saying, “Could we move this inside?”

“Agreed,” Richie says immediately, although he doubts any of his neighbors will have noticed their little standoff yet.

“Agreed with…?” Ben says, looking between Beverly and Richie. At first, Richie thinks his gaze is completely passing over Eddie, but on second thought – it catches, a little. He wonders if Eddie’s noticed.

Eddie pulls the door open a little wider and eyes Ben with obvious interest, so he must have caught the same split-second pause Richie did. Bill gives the door a searching look, but otherwise only leads Ben after Bev into Richie’s apartment. The implied invitation _is _kind of obvious, ghost or no ghost.

“You guys wanna sit down?” Richie offers once they’re all inside. “If you haven’t had enough coffee yet today, I can make some.”

Eddie grins at him. “It’d probably make for a better effect if I do it.”

“Hey, that’s perfect! Now you’re thinking like a real ghost!”

Bill and Ben exchange a bewildered look. Bill says, “Water would be fine,” but his eyes never leave the space Richie and Bev keep talking to; he very nearly trips over the coffee table on his way to a chair, which gets a soft laugh out of Eddie.

“Could you ask him to try to avoid getting a concussion because of me?”

“He says not to get a concussion,” Beverly says. “And you’re looking a little too far to the right.”

Bill blinks owlishly at her before he manages to center his gaze on Eddie – still standing close enough to Richie that their fingers could brush against each other if they shifted just a little closer. “Oh. Um – hi, Eddie.”

“Hi,” Eddie returns, and takes Richie’s hand.

Bill jumps a little and starts to get back out of his chair. For a moment Richie panics and starts to pull away from Eddie, but then Bill says, “I heard that! Keep talking!” and Richie freezes, caught between hope and fear.

Eddie gives Richie a startled look, which Richie matches with one of his own; at a loss, he settles on giving Eddie’s hand a reassuring squeeze and not letting go. He knows Beverly must have noticed the gesture just as surely as she’s noticed Eddie’s borrowed clothes, but she still hasn’t said anything. Richie doesn’t think she will, at least not in front of everyone.

Eddie eyes him a moment longer before saying, “Okay – um, I really don’t know what to say… Is this still working?”

Ben blinks and looks at Beverly. “You heard that, right?”

She nods excitedly, so of course Ben and Bill both come to stand with the three of them, halfway between the living room and the kitchen. Richie thinks Eddie can probably feel his pulse quicken the longer he keeps a steady grip on his hand in front of so many people – people they both trust, he has to remind himself. People who love them. He still doesn’t let go, and Eddie doesn’t comment on how sweaty his hands are getting.

“Okay, this is… more than I expected,” Eddie says. “What’s even the plan here?”

“The… plan?” Bill asks. Richie briefly assumes he’s just confused about the entire concept of having one – which wouldn’t be _that _weird, considering they really _don’t_ have one as far as Richie’s aware – but after a moment it occurs to him that, no, he’s just trying to hear Eddie more clearly.

“What does he sound like to you?” Richie asks.

“Far away,” Ben answers immediately. Bill nods in agreement.

“Huh,” Richie says. He mulls that over, then says, “I think we need to call Mike.”

“Shit – yeah,” Bill says, already pulling out his phone and dialing. “I told him we would.”

Eddie frowns; Richie catches it out of the corner of his eye, but he can hear it in his tone just as well. “I don’t know if he’ll be able to hear me over the phone if I sound… far away?”

“Ben couldn’t,” Bev agrees. “Maybe it’s too much physical distance.”

“You could yell really loud and see if that works,” Richie suggests.

“Thanks for the tip,” Eddie says, catching the half-joke and giving Richie’s hand a playful little tug. “I’ll try waking you up like that one of these days.”

_You could wake me up like that every day, _Richie almost says. If they were alone, he thinks. If they were alone, he could.

Bev laughs, which seems to catch Eddie almost as off guard as it does Richie, but she just gives them both a warm look and lets the electronic crackle of Bill turning on speakerphone put an easy end to the exchange.

Mike answers the call in the middle of the first ring with an excited, “Bill, hi! Have you seen Eddie yet? Is he there?”

“Not me,” Bill admits. “But Bev can. And Richie, obviously.”

Bev and Richie give Eddie twin looks of encouragement; Ben and Bill do the same, albeit in slightly the wrong direction, so Eddie leans determinedly close to the phone and says, “Hey, Mike!” just a little more loudly than Richie had been expecting.

There’s a pause before Mike says, “I think your connection’s a little weak, Bill. You’ve got some static.”

Eddie sighs dejectedly. Beverly puts a reassuring hand on his shoulder, but Richie asks, “Did you hear Bill?”

“Richie! Yeah, I heard Bill just fine… Wait, actually – was that Eddie?”

“Yes!” Eddie cries excitedly, letting go of Richie’s hand to clap both of his together. He’s loud enough this time that Bill and Ben both jump a little, too, but the first person he turns to with wide, shining eyes is Richie. “He did hear me!”

Richie takes his now-free hand and loops that arm around Eddie’s waist, contagiously thrilled enough that it _just _manages to outweigh his fear of showing it in front of an audience. His heart still beats harder in his chest, but he thinks – well, either it’ll look like a particularly weird pantomime, or they just… won’t notice. He wants to kiss Eddie again. He wants to, but he doesn’t. He lets as much affection as he dares slip into his voice when he instead says, “You’re doing great.”

“Okay, wow – that’s good,” Mike says. “That’s really good.”

“Any ideas, Mikey?” Bill asks. Something in the back of Richie’s mind is profoundly relieved that his full attention is still on their phone call.

“Yeah, I need to get a flight down there, and soon,” Mike says seriously. “Beyond that… Eddie, has anything changed?”

Eddie blinks a few times before dazedly answering, “Uh – changed? No, I’m – everything’s the same.” Before Richie can give him a concerned once-over, he feels a hesitant touch against the small of his back. Eddie looks at him as if to ask, _‘Is this okay?’ _and Richie half-mouths-half-whispers, _‘Fuck yes,’ _so Eddie relaxes against him and wraps his arm the rest of the way around Richie. Something like a quarter of Richie’s full brainpower is immediately focused on every point of contact between them, especially the hand resting against his side.

When he glances up again, he’s stunned – and moderately terrified – to find himself at the center of attention.

“…Guys? What did he say?” Mike asks as the quiet in the room stretches on. Beverly’s wearing the fading afterimage of a smile as her expression grows increasingly concerned; Ben and Bill are looking at Richie, but they’re looking at him the way they’ve been looking – or trying to look – at Eddie since they got here.

Bev cuts in when it becomes obvious that no one else is going to answer. “He says no, but… he did get to shower and change clothes.”

Mike sounds surprised. “And you guys can’t see what he’s wearing now, either?”

Eddie’s grip on Richie tightens almost imperceptibly. Ben says, “No – well, it’s weird, actually –”

Bill nods. “It’s like when something’s on the tip of your tongue, but with… seeing? It’s the same with Richie, like”—

Richie blinks out of his scared stupor. “What – with _me_?”

“Yeah, but only since a second ago,” Ben says. “I can’t… focus on you, or something.”

“Oh, fuck,” Eddie says, already starting to pull his arm back from Richie. He sounds _horrified. _“Fuck, no.”

“Richie? How close are you to Eddie right now?” Mike asks, and _that _dials up Richie’s fear from background hum to deafening roar, so he stumbles away from Eddie even before Eddie can finish his own retreat.

“Not – not that close,” he says, voice quavering, and now Bill and Ben look thoroughly alarmed, and their eyes are still on him and he can’t feel Eddie at his side and the loss feels so immense for a moment that his knees nearly buckle. Some part of him feels displaced, like he’s forty in L.A. but he’s also thirteen in Derry, and there are dozens of eyes on him and the bleating of the arcade machines still isn’t enough to drown out the sick lurch of shame in his gut.

“Jesus, are you okay?” Ben says, already holding a hand out to steady him; Richie flinches away instinctively.

“I’m fine. Fuck.” He has to force himself to breathe slowly through the nausea.

“Did something happen?” Mike asks, clearly alarmed.

“Don’t touch me,” he hears Eddie say, and relief washes through him for an instant before it’s replaced with concern. “Beverly, _don’t._”

“I’m not,” Beverly says. When Richie looks over at her, he sees Eddie several more feet away, eyes wide and arms raised as if to ward off Beverly, whose own hands are raised in a gesture like you’d use on a spooked horse. “I won’t.”

“I can’t do this to Richie, too,” Eddie’s crying. “I _can’t_.”

“Eds,” Richie says, fighting down his own fear and the choking, suffocating _shame _for the sake of calming Eddie down. It’s all he can do. “Eds, it’s okay.” God, he’d been doing so well, he’d been enjoying touching, and he _knows _it’s okay, he _knows _–

“No, it isn’t! They almost couldn’t see you! What if I’m fucking contagious, Rich?”

Richie blinks, dazed. He takes a step back toward Eddie, who immediately takes a step away. “Contagious?”

“Well, maybe,” he hears Mike say, followed by an explanation he’s not present enough to process right now.

“Mike – Mike, lay off a minute,” he manages. Eddie looks scared out of his mind, but that isn’t _all. _He looks – soft around the edges, like Richie’s seeing him in a dream, and when he manages to get close enough to touch, he – can’t. He doesn’t feel anything when his fingers connect with the edge of Eddie’s shirt.

“Oh,” he hears Beverly say. “Eddie, come on, hang on.”

“Not _now_,” Richie hisses. “_Fuck_, Eds, not now.”

He sees comprehension cross Eddie’s face, followed closely by more tears. “I’m so sorry, Richie.”

“Please stay,” Richie says. “Please promise you’ll stay. It doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”

“You don’t know it isn’t,” Eddie whispers. “I can’t”—

Richie doesn’t hear the rest of the sentence, and he doesn’t see Eddie. Like a curtain lifted by a gentle breeze and then dropped back into place – there and gone, just like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much to think about? ;3
> 
> (There may be a delay of a day or two before the next chapter - I've got a lot of Halloween-related plans and so might not have as much time to write during the next two or three days!)


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content warning** for a fairly graphic, _hypothetical_ description of gore/a dead body in this chapter! And for (less graphic but still present) emetophobia, again, sorry!
> 
> Well, this chapter did wind up being late as expected, but it is also quite long. Quite quite long. Whoops. I might have been able to post it last night but was distracted by carving Pennywise's face into a pumpkin instead. Homophobic clown strikes again!

Eddie presses his back to the wall and just lets it happen.

He doesn’t know at what point he becomes entirely nonexistent to Richie and the others, trapped alone in his cold little half-reality, but he does know that his first instinct once it’s happened is to reach toward the hand Richie still has extended in his direction.

His second is to stop short and force himself to stiffly side-step it until he’s well out of reach. He’s still crying enough that it’s hard to see much past the blur of his tears; he splays his hands palm-down against the wall behind him and wishes he could draw some kind of strength from its solidity.

Richie says his name again – twice – and then stumbles forward like a rubber band that’s been stretched so far it’s finally snapped. His hand hits the wall a foot or two from Eddie with a soft thud and he weakly braces himself there.

With a strangled groan and a cut-off curse, he vomits all over the carpet.

Eddie takes a hurried step back toward him before he can stop himself, but he does stop, and Richie’s name dies on his lips. There’s too good a chance he’ll just make the situation worse, so he watches in teary-eyed silence as their friends brush past him to guide Richie over to the couch. He doesn’t dare follow them, but he keeps his gaze trained on Richie.

Poor Mike is stuck trying to understand what’s going on with nothing but muffled sounds and half a conversation to go on, until finally Bill says, “Mike – Eddie’s gone.”

“Well – well is Richie okay?” Mike says desperately, like he’s on the verge of tears, himself. Eddie can empathize with that feeling of helplessness; he can’t even be the one who rushes to the kitchen to grab Richie a glass of water.

“Don’t worry about me,” Richie says, but he sounds like he’s still miles away and his breathing hasn’t evened out despite Ben’s earnest attempts to guide him through some breathing exercises. He doesn’t take the water when Bev tries to hand it to him. He doesn’t even seem to notice it’s there. “Eddie”—

“Can wait until you’ve calmed down,” Bill tells him. Richie looks at him like he’s afraid of him, like he’s a stranger, and Bill meets that look with a level gaze Eddie doesn’t think he could manage in a thousand years. To Mike, he says, “I think he’s just a little shaken.”

“I said I’m fine,” Richie snaps, pitching forward to brace his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Eddie can see it for the attempt to hide that it is; apparently Ben and Bev do, too, because they share a quick glance over his shoulders.

“Do you feel okay physically – aside from the, uh, nausea?” Mike says in that way he always did when it was obvious he was expecting a specific answer but didn’t want to let on what it was. “Was Eddie still touching you when he disappeared?”

Eddie’s gradually and only partly intentionally crept closer to the group, but he’s still not close enough to see the look on Richie’s face when Mike says that; even Ben and Bill sitting on either side of him probably can’t. What none of them could possibly miss is the way he flinches like he’s been stung.

“Why don’t we give him some space first,” Ben cuts in, and it’s much less a question than it is a gentle demand. “Just a few minutes. Do you have time, Mike?”

“All night,” Mike says immediately. “Give me another call in a bit? I’ll be right here.”

Richie starts to protest, but Bev clears her throat in a completely un-subtle effort to cut him off. He straightens up enough to glare at her, but she just gives him a pointed look and says, “Thanks, Mike. I think Richie and I need to compare notes first, anyway.”

“They’re giving you an out,” Eddie says, and prays Richie will take it.

“…Fine,” Richie mutters, but there’s still more tension gradually seeping into his expression like blood into a rag. When Bill opens his mouth with a confused frown on his face, Beverly shakes her head at him before any part of a question can make it out. Eddie doesn’t think Richie even notices.

Still, the fact that something’s passing unspoken between just three of their remaining five has to be obvious even to Mike on the other side of the fucking country; Eddie can understand why Bill seems so perplexed by the subterfuge – and why Mike’s open concern doesn’t sound like it’s faded in the slightest when he trades a few quick goodbyes with everyone and hangs up – but he’s still just as relieved as Richie looks when neither of them decides that now is a good time to investigate the issue .

Bill waits until Beverly and Richie are halfway to the hall to ask a question, but it’s just, “Do you need me to take a walk?”

Ben and Bev both leave that one up to Richie, who looks anywhere but at Bill and surprises Eddie with a quiet, “No.” He doesn’t sound sure of his answer at all; Bill looks, if anything, _more _uncertain of what to do than he did a moment ago.

“So…”

Richie just shrugs, still avoiding eye contact like the plague. “I just need a minute. And then I need to talk to you, too.”

Bill’s frown lightens a little, but doesn’t quite disappear. “If you’re up to it,” he says.

Richie grimaces. “I’m not. But this is stupid.”

He turns on his heel, then, and doesn’t say anything else until a door at the end of the hall opens. Beverly joins him there, and after another moment Ben follows suit with an apologetic look at Bill. Eddie watches them go and doesn’t move an inch.

The door doesn’t click shut, but Eddie still can’t quite make out what’s being said until Beverly’s voice echoes down the hall. “Eddie, if you aren’t in here already, you’d better fix that now.”

Eddie swallows down a surge of apprehension. He’s finally stopped crying, but he’s still dangerously close to the precipice of completely losing his composure again, and he’s keenly aware of the possibility that this will push him right over the edge. Very reluctantly, he joins the three of them in what turns out to be the guest room, neatly made, untouched bed and all. Richie’s perched on the edge of it with his hands making fists in the sweatpants he’s been wearing since this morning – _feels like ages ago – _and Beverly’s sitting beside him.

“Good?” Ben asks, nudging the door just enough that its hinges squeak.

Richie nods, so Ben swings it the rest of the way shut. Eddie settles in as far away from any of them as he can get, abuzz with nervous energy and just as unsure of what to do with himself as Bill had been. His thumb grazes the bundle of notebooks in his pocket; after another moment passes in tense silence, he eases one out. Just in case.

Finally, Ben says, “So… I think I understood about as much of what just happened as Bill did. Did whatever was happening hurt, or”—

“No,” Richie says. “Nothing hurt me. I threw up because I was scared, but not of _Eddie._”

Eddie thinks he’s just splitting hairs – if he’s scared of what having Eddie near him might do to him, then they might as well call a spade a spade – but it gets his attention, if nothing else. It appeals to the scared, desperately in love part of him – which is most of him, after all – that yearns for reassurance that Richie doesn’t hate or fear him even now.

Ben eases onto the bed on Richie’s other side. “I’m guessing that’s what you wanted to make sure he hears?”

Richie’s eyes slip shut just briefly. “Yeah, part,” and then he opens them again to glance around the room, and his tone changes, goes soft and guilty, and he says, “I need you to know it’s not your fault I freaked out, and I really am okay. It’s just” – and he shrugs, and he looks down at his lap and Ben and Bev look at him – “same old, same old. I guess I assumed it’d be easier if only Bev could actually see you, like it’d just fly under the radar and I could – could, I don’t know, just get away with it.”

“With what?” Eddie and Beverly both say, almost but not quite in unison.

“Touching him,” Richie says, except that his voice cracks when he does. He looks like he’s quickly losing whatever nerve he’d worked up for this. He scrubs at his face with the palms of his hands, and, shakily, he mutters, “Fuck, it was just – just the tiniest amount of PDA, and I’m too fucked up to relax about it.”

That throws Eddie for a loop. “Richie, we’ve kissed.”

Beverly says, “That’s not something you have to worry about ‘getting away with’ with us. That includes Bill and Mike.”

“I _know,_” Richie says, pained. “That’s why it’s so fucking _frustrating._ And he looked so _scared_, you know? And I – Eds, I _know _you’re probably only focusing on all the bad things it could mean that you almost ghosted me, too, or whatever the fuck that was, but we don’t even know if that’s what would’ve happened”—

“Obviously, it was,” Eddie interjects, but Richie just continues on, oblivious.

–“so I just need you to know I’m not worried about any of that, okay? This was all me. I just… got overwhelmed. Happens a lot lately.”

Beverly reaches up to rub gently at Richie’s back. He exhales shakily and gives her a grateful look.

Ben asks, “You think Eddie thinks he scared you?”

“I think he’s afraid he hurt me,” Richie says. “And I think he could use the reassurance.”

A single tear rolls down Eddie’s cheek before he can remember to blink the rest of them back. He probably would’ve given himself a headache by now, if things like that still happened to him. He pulls a pen out of his pocket and writes, _‘Just because you’re not worried doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be! Winding up like me could kill you.’ _He rips the page out and gingerly gets close enough to Richie to set it on his leg, just above his knee; he’s quick to step back to a safe distance.

No one so much as glances at it. Beverly says, “That sounds right,” and Ben nods.

“He _would_ worry about something being contagious,” he agrees with a tentative little smile.

“Even being a ghost,” Richie says with a short laugh, and his smile sparks a more excited one on Ben, who looks like he’s just about to say something else when Richie glances down and goes wide-eyed.

With a trembling hand, he plucks the paper off his lap; Eddie feels some of the tension slip out of him like fish through a net.

The three of them read it together; Richie looks torn between triumphant and exasperated, while Ben and Bev just look amazed.

“He can leave notes?” Beverly asks in a tone that clearly implies, _Then why hasn’t he done it before?_

Richie finally settles on triumphant and says, proudly and with a wide smile, “We didn’t know if it would work ‘til just now.”

“You could talk about what I actually said,” Eddie grumbles, but even he feels some of his anxiety ebb with the promise of easier communication.

He’s so caught up in writing his next note that he almost doesn’t hear Ben say, “So you two got to talk.” It isn’t really a question – more of a prompt. Eddie looks up to see how Richie takes it and is relieved to find that he looks pretty calm – still riding the high of their tiny victory, maybe.

“Yeah, we talked,” he says, and then he laughs – a quiet, thoroughly genuine laugh that makes Eddie absolutely _ache _to reach out and kiss his open mouth. He doesn’t – he _can’t – _but the sudden longing is enough to make him dizzy. “I think it went alright.”

Eddie inches forward and sets the new note in the same place, except this time he allows his fingers to graze Richie’s thigh before he withdraws. He knows how selfish that is, how unjustifiable a risk, but he does it anyway. Richie shivers and brings a hand up to touch the spot; he doesn’t seem to notice the paper, much to Eddie’s dismay, and neither Ben nor Bev seems to notice Richie’s brief reaction. In fact, it takes another several minutes for anyone to zero in on the ink-laden slip of paper; it happens somewhere in between Bev asking for more details and Ben pulling Richie into a tentatively congratulatory one-armed hug despite Richie’s awkward refusal to give any.

Richie’s hand brushes the paper again, and this time his eyes fall to it mid-sentence; he trails off and picks the note up. Eddie fidgets with the edges of the shirt he borrowed from Richie and watches them all read it; somehow, he feels just as put on the spot as he would if they were watching him say the words out loud.

_ ‘Bev + Ben – Richie and I wanted to tell you this together but I don’t know how long it’ll be til I can.’_

There’s a break to another line, then a tiny _‘(Sorry Richie).’ _

_‘I love him too.’_

“So much it hurts,” Eddie whispers.

_‘That’s why I need him to be safe. More than I want to be with him, and that’s a lot.’_

He’s signed it with a lopsided drawing of a heart and his name. Richie presses a single finger to it gently enough that the paper barely gives, his expression distant and eyes damp. Beverly whispers, “Oh, Eddie,” and he knows she’s close to tears, too. She reaches for Ben’s hand and meets him halfway; their fingers brush behind Richie’s back, and then they pull him into the center of a hug.

“He will be,” Ben promises. “And so will you.” Eddie doesn’t know which of them he’s talking to, even. He sees Richie fold the paper carefully into the palm of one hand, and he wants to be there, too, wrapped up in his friends’ arms with his head pressed to Richie’s chest. He wants to wipe the tears from Richie’s cheeks, but he’s scared to touch. Like Richie, but not, because Richie brings everything he touches to life and Eddie might just do the opposite.

“We still need a promise out of you, Eds,” Beverly tells him, and Eddie shakes his head. He knows none of them can see him, anyway; it’s a knee-jerk response, so maybe that’s why Beverly anticipates it and says, “Think of it this way. You know what this could mean?”

“That I totally won the jackpot?” Richie jokes.

Ben pulls back to give Richie’s shoulder a light squeeze. Instead of offering him a direct response, he says, “Well, if things like paper can rematerialize when Eddie isn’t touching them, the same thing would probably happen to a person if he just let go.” He glances around the room, not quite like he’s really looking for Eddie but like he wants it to be clear that’s who he’s talking to when he asks, “Does that help?”

“Paper’s not fucking alive,” Eddie mutters. He doesn’t even want to imagine taking Richie with him only for him to reappear cold and – and he shudders, and he has to fight back the horror of it enough to keep his feet on the ground. _Overwhelmed_, he thinks. Yeah, he gets that.

He knows they’ll be able to tell, as much as his hands shake writing the next note. His handwriting definitely suffers for it.

_‘I promise to stay,’ _it says,_ ‘but I can’t risk touching any of you long enough to hurt.’_

He tries not to dwell on the way Richie’s face falls when he reads that one. He has to tell himself it’s better that he didn’t leave any room for argument by telling the truth – that he _yearns_ to, that he wants nothing more than to hold and be held. That he doesn’t know if he has the resolve to keep that promise the next time he has the chance to break it.

-*-

They reemerge from the guest bedroom to find Bill scrubbing at the carpet with a few damp paper towels. Eddie grimaces and makes a mental note to write up some instructions on how to clean that more effectively later; in the meantime, though, it at least serves as a distraction for Richie, who immediately rushes over to tell him he doesn’t have to do that, it’s fine, he has little enough to do around here as it is, and so on.

“I figured it was probably better not to leave it,” Bill says, but he still lets Richie take the towels from him and show him to the kitchen sink. Ben and Bev trail after them, hand-in-hand. “Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah,” Richie says distractedly. “Really excited to come out to two more people after the fucking day I’ve had, then maybe we can all finally focus on talking some sense in…to… shit,” and he freezes with a hand towel half-extended toward Bill.

“Come out?” Bill repeats, and takes the proffered towel with an appreciative nod. His expression is, at most, casually inquisitive. It only becomes concerned the longer Richie remains stock-still and pale-faced.

“…I’ll go ahead and make some tea,” Ben offers when no one says anything else.

By the time they’re all seated with mugs of hot tea in front of them and Mike on speakerphone in the middle of the table, Richie’s calmed down enough to notice the scrap of paper Eddie’s set beside his phone.

_‘You can do it. Say whatever you’re comfortable with.’ _And another heart, because he seemed to like the last one. Sure enough, it puts a smile on Richie’s face, which seems to reassure everyone else, too.

“So, you guys have a _lot_ of catching up to do,” Richie tells Bill and Mike. He chews at his lower lip for a moment, then more seriously says, “Can you just – promise you won’t make a huge deal of what I’m about to tell you?”

Bill and Mike both agree, although Bill also shoots Ben and Bev a worried look and asks, “It isn’t a bad thing, right?”

Richie blanches. “I – I hope not.”

“No,” Ben says firmly, and shushes Bill, like for a moment they’re all kids again and he’s fighting the losing battle of trying to keep them all in line. Like he would’ve, except maybe more timidly, if he’d ever managed to drag them all down to the Derry Public Library – a suggestion Richie himself had always firmly rejected, as if they didn’t all already know he was more of a bookworm than he ever let on. If they had ever spent an afternoon there, it would’ve been Richie disrupting the quiet – and Eddie, too, in all honesty. One word from Richie, and they’d both have been two half-steps away from getting kicked out, plus or minus the rest of the group for being guilty by association.

Eddie’s so distracted by his own reminiscing that he hardly realizes he’s put his hand over Richie’s on the table until Richie makes a soft noise and twitches beneath him.

“Eds?”

Eddie swears and starts to pull away, but Richie shifts in his chair so he can put his other hand over Eddie’s, holding him there. His eyes don’t focus on Eddie, but Eddie has nowhere to look but right into them when Richie says, “It helps, Eds, it’s okay. Please.”

“Can you see him?” Bill asks, immediately perking up, but Richie just shakes his head and keeps his attention focused on the space Eddie’s occupying.

“We’ll say something if the same thing happens again,” Ben says in Eddie’s general direction. “You don’t have to worry.”

“I’m holding you to that,” Eddie manages to choke out, and lets Richie cling to the tenuous hint of his presence like it’s a lifeline. Richie’s palm feels clammy against the back of Eddie’s hand, but Eddie notes with a hint of pride that his hands are shaking less with Eddie’s clasped between them.

He still looks nervous enough to keep Eddie carefully focused on him when he says, “Okay, so first off – I’m really fucking bad at this and I might throw up again, but it still won’t be Eddie’s fault, at all, so just – just putting that out there.” He stops just to catch his breath before saying, “I’m gay,” and then he stops again like it took everything he had in his lungs just to say those two words.

He also looks a little bit like he might pass out, which Eddie decides should mean he’s allowed to awkwardly reach across with his free hand and press his open palm to the curve of Richie’s cheek. He doesn’t know if Richie feels it – if he only imagines that Richie leans slightly into the touch because he wants to believe that he does – but in the brief silence that follows, Eddie feels enough love and admiration for Richie that his chest feels like it could burst.

“Okay, I know I said not to make a big deal but the non-response might actually be worse,” Richie says, definitely worried and starting to go pale again.

“Sorry,” Mike says immediately, “sorry, we’re – I’m just surprised.”

“Still waiting for the punch-line?” Richie guesses. Eddie doesn’t like the note of self-deprecation in it, like Richie’s bracing himself to hear something a lot worse than that.

“…A little?” Mike admits, and then seems to realize how that sounds, because he rushes to add, “But it isn’t a bad thing! It’s just unexpected!”

Bill looks like he agrees but doesn’t know if he should say so, so instead he just gives Richie a smile Eddie thinks is meant to be encouraging and says, “And I’m guessing this has something to do with Eddie?”

Some color rushes back into Richie’s cheeks. “That’s – that’s the punch-line?” he says weakly, running a hand through his hair without looking at anyone except, briefly, his phone. Eddie decides to take that as his cue and quietly takes both his hands back to dig his notebook out of the front pocket of the Hawaiian shirt. The brief, questioning glance Richie throws his way is enough indication that he’s noticed the sudden loss of contact, but he’s already opened his mouth to say, “I – uh, I guess it’s kinda obvious once you know the first part.”

It would be pretty clear to Eddie that that wasn’t what he set out to say even if it weren’t for the look of vague frustration on Richie’s face when he finishes and wraps his hands protectively around his mug of tea.

Bill looks at Ben and Bev like he expects them to fill him in, but they only respond with looks that say, _You’ll have to get it out of _him_ one way or another._

Eddie doesn’t even have time to write anything of his own before Mike makes a sudden _a-ha _noise and says, “Oh, you have a thing for him.”

Richie chokes around a sip of tea and sets the cup back down in a hurry. “That’s putting it lightly,” he says with a lopsided little grin that’s slightly forced and very nervous, “but – but yeah. I – we… have a thing.”

Bill’s encouraging smile broadens into a genuinely happy one. “‘We?’”

Eddie scribbles a note as fast as he can and sets it out beside Richie’s phone. By now he expects the lag between his letting it go and someone – Bill, this time – catching sight of it, but that doesn’t make him any less impatient for the moment when Bill reaches out and picks the paper up, cutting Beverly off mid-sentence.

“Oh,” Ben says, and Beverly says, “That’s probably”—

“Eddie,” Richie says, perking up from where he’d started to slump onto the table. “A note from Eddie.”

Eddie’s honestly mortified when Bill opts to read the note out loud without even skimming it first: “Just wait til we both settle into being the world’s first ghost-slash-human couple and Richie won’t stop making stupid romantic jokes about ghosts”—

“Hey,” Richie protests, then grins slyly in Eddie’s general direction. “…The important part is they’d be romantic.”

“You wish, asshole,” Eddie retorts, but he’s smiling, too.

“Eddie said that?” Mike asks. “On paper?”

“We’ll get to that, Mikey,” Bill says, scanning the rest of the note for a second before he glances at Richie and continues, “Uh, he also said, ‘I want to be with him the right way, so I hope you assholes have some ideas, because this fucking sucks. You know it keeps taking you guys forever to see these?’”

“Thought so,” Richie says. He sniffles a little and says, “But at least you can talk to us now. No more radio silence for days.”

“That’s really sweet,” Mike says. “You know I owe both of you a hug when I see you? It’ll just be two days, I booked a flight just now – between calls.”

“Dude, will you be okay at work?” Richie says, immediately concerned. “Do they know you’re about to haul ass all the way to California?”

“Well, no,” Mike admits. Before anyone else can interject, he rushes to add, “But they do know I’ve been looking for an opportunity to go down there, and I think at this point it’s enough forewarning that they’ll understand if I explain that it’s gotten really urgent.”

“Yeah, sometimes people just have to go ghost hunting, it happens,” Eddie says sarcastically.

“Hey, it’s a popular TV genre these days,” Richie tells him. Then he blinks like he has no idea why he said that. Eddie gives him an appraising look, but no – he’s no more fully aware of Eddie than he had been a few seconds ago.

“What?” Mike asks.

“It’s that thing, right?” Bill says, leaning forward with both elbows on the table in front of him. He just seems excited that he knows what’s going on for once. “When you respond without realizing you even heard anything?”

“Yeah,” Richie says. “That’s still such a weird feeling. I don’t even know what you said, Eddie, so I’m gonna just assume that was a great response. And if we’re arguing, I think I win by default.”

“I’m not going to justify that with a whole note,” Eddie retorts, “but I think we both know which of us would actually win.”

“That hardly seems fair,” Beverly laughs. “Technically Eddie gets the last word.”

Eddie just points at her, silent but appreciative, and Richie mutters something playful about the perceived betrayal.

“I’m not the only one who’s thinking stuff like this is happening more often, right?” Mike wonders. “I mean, based on what Richie’s told me.”

A chorus of agreements erupts at the table – from Eddie, too, not that anyone hears it.

“Yeah, and we were thinking, if he can leave notes and stuff, it’d probably work the same way with another person,” Ben says. “Like when he was touching Richie, even if they’d stayed like that and Richie, uh – phased out?”

“Yeah, or dematerialized?” Mike offers.

“Well, either way, it seems like he’d just come back if they separated after the fact,” Beverly says.

“Yeah – yes! And actually, I was thinking, and it’s just an _idea, _but what if the reverse were also possible?”

_‘I’ll keep saying this until you guys take it seriously: what if turning into a literal fucking ghost just so happens to be fatal? That would make sense, right? I mean why would some kind of five second rule apply here, that’s stupid’ _

Eddie leaves that note in the center of the table with a frustrated slap that no one seems to hear, but the conversation goes on while he waits for the note to make the rest of its way to them.

“You mean like I – like we could keep him” – Richie makes a confusing gesture with his hands, like he’s indicating the room around them but also making some kind of mushroom shape – “here?”

“You think it could be that easy?” Beverly wonders.

“We’ve seen firsthand how simple a solution to something like this can be,” Mike points out.

“I don’t know if this is really the same as bullying a sewer clown to death,” Richie says, reluctantly. “But still, it makes sense.” He sighs. “I just don’t know if Eddie would even let us try that.”

“You got that right,” Eddie tells him.

“He thinks he could hurt us,” Ben explains for Bill and Mike’s benefit.

“_Thank _you,” Eddie says, gesturing broadly to emphasize the importance of this not-even-a-revelation.

Richie holds up a hand, then, and reaches for Eddie’s note. “Hang on. Gotta check the ghost mail.”

“Is that really the best you could do?” Eddie says. “Ghost mail? At least make a pun. Post, ghost, I’m sure you could do something with that.”

Richie doesn’t take his advice, though; he just sighs. “See, called it,” he says, and then he passes the note around the table. Ben is the one who reads it aloud for Mike’s benefit, this time.

Bill frowns thoughtfully. “I mean, he has a point. It could be risky.”

“Counterpoint: nothing wrong with having _two _ghosts around.”

“_Not_ funny,” Eddie snaps.

“Beep beep, Richie.”

“_Fine_, but we have to do _something_! I can have a little backpack with water and granola bars and shit and bam – all set for a little ghost adventure. Fuck, I’ll even get a defibrillator, if it makes you feel better.”

“That could work,” Bill readily agrees, to Eddie’s immense distress. Of-fucking-course _Bill _would immediately be on board with something that half-baked and dangerous.

“When you put it like that I think I agree with Eddie,” Ben says uneasily.

“Actually, there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask Eddie,” Mike says. “Some of the things I’ve read made me wonder if I shouldn’t, but they’re not exactly reputable and it’s pretty important, so – Eddie, do you remember what happened when we fought It? Toward the end, I mean.”

“You mean do I remember dying,” Eddie says tonelessly. Richie repeats almost the same question, and everyone flinches or cringes or lowers their eyes to their mostly-untouched drinks.

Eddie figures they’re hoping he’ll break the silence first, even if it’s just to tell them not to bring it up again – _tempting, _but instead he hesitantly writes a fresh note, riddled with scribbled-out words and alterations. _‘I don’t really like to think about it,’ _which is true, but not helpful. _‘I remember being alone after Richie left. I think I was too far-gone to process what you were doing at that point. The next thing I knew, I was in front of that fucking house’ – _he’s scribbled that out, too, and rewritten, _‘Neibolt. I caught up to you guys near the townhouse.’_

And the rest is history.

Before anyone’s noticed that note sitting where Eddie left the last two, Ben says, “Do you think he saw… you know, himself?”

Eddie jots down his gut reaction to that and slaps the paper down in a hurry beside the last one: _‘No I didn’t see my body and I don’t fucking want to!’_

The room goes bizarrely quiet, then. Eddie wonders how long it’ll take them to see these notes if none of them will even look up from their tea, or their laps.

Then Beverly says, “I think we owe both of you an apology,” and it’s like some kind of a dam breaks. Richie’s head snaps up and for a moment he almost looks like he’s _pleading, _but now Eddie wants to know what any of them could possibly have to apologize for in the first place.

“Especially Eddie,” Ben agrees.

Unbelievably, _everyone_ looks to be on the verge of tears. Even Mike’s voice has an undercurrent of barely-restrained grief to it when he says, “For leaving you. At least if we hadn’t, we’d know if you’re still – if you’re still there.”

“Still there,” Eddie repeats. He’s been carefully shutting out thoughts like that as much as possible all this time, and he’s not about to stop now when he can’t even count on being close enough to Richie to calm him down. His hands are already itching to seek out Richie’s; he grips the pen and paper tighter, instead, and swallows around the growing lump in his throat.

“He’s _not _there,” Richie says hotly. “He’s right here.”

But it isn’t that simple, is it? It’s a practical question: does Eddie still have a body to live in, even if they do find a way to fix this? What is he made of now – anything? Psychic fucking bullshit and magic gone bad?

“I don’t want to think about this,” Eddie whispers. “I can’t think about this.”

But he _does_ think about it, because that’s what his shitty brain has always done when it catches on a particularly juicy new source of dread. It’s obvious, of course, and it makes sense, but it hadn’t really occurred to him before that they’d left him. That some part of him – the important part, the part that existed – really might be alone as they speak. Alone _all_ of the time instead of just most of it, and destined to stay that way forever. Crushed to a pulp by hundreds of feet of solid rock and concrete and left to soak in blood and greywater until it doesn’t even look human, let alone like _him – _

He wraps his arms around himself and cries, “Richie, oh god, Richie – what am – what the fuck am I”—

“If we hadn’t dragged Richie out, h-he’d be gone, too,” Bill is saying. “We _had _to”—!

“He doesn’t need to fucking hear this!” Richie snarls at them. His hands come down hard on the table as he shoots to his feet, and it’s only then that any of them seem to notice the way the motion jostles the papers Eddie set down earlier. Richie looks at them and then looks away, and Eddie feels so horribly alone in that moment that he wants to scream. “You guys haven’t heard how he fucking talks about himself, okay, he’s fucking terrified as it is and we’re supposed to be _helping_, not rehashing this shit!”

Eddie unfurls himself just enough to write through his tears, _‘Don’t fight, please don’t. I’m ok but I don’t know either’_

_‘I wish things could be simple,’ _on another sheet, and he tears them out one after another and leaves them in a row in front of him.

_‘There must be some other way to know’_

_‘If you all saw me dead why do you think there’s any hope for me now?’_

And the thing that should have caught his attention as soon as it was said: _‘You had to drag Richie out?’_

Eddie’s hardly calmed down at all by the time the others manage to get Richie to sit back down and let Bill read the two messages Eddie left earlier: a sparse explanation that makes it painfully obvious to them that Eddie hadn’t known –_ doesn’t _know anything that would answer the million-dollar question for them. And the understatement of the century – he doesn’t want to see, but fuck if he can’t see just fine anyway via his own macabre imagination.

Richie sits in stony silence and snaps up the notes Eddie left in panicked haste the second his eyes light on them. He doesn’t read them aloud, but his expression’s all twisted into one of raw pain and regret by the time he’s reached the last one.

When he passes the notes to the others, all he says is, “We have to help him.” He doesn’t have to say ‘I told you so,’ because that’s obvious in the way his jaw clenches around the words.

Bev reads each of the notes to Mike, sad and quiet and reluctant.

“Ben and I did,” Mike says when she gets to the last one, and Richie sighs.

“Bill’s right,” he mutters. “I would’ve – if you hadn’t, we really would have two ghosts on our hands. I wasn’t thinking. I couldn’t – I couldn’t accept it.”

“You tried to stay in a collapsing sewer with me,” Eddie realizes. His tears slow as the realization fully dawns on him. “You knew I was dead and you tried to – Jesus, Richie.”

“People do stupid things when the people they love are hurt,” Bill says. “I-I’ve done plenty of that, too.”

“Spilled milk,” Richie murmurs, and then he takes a deep breath, in and out, and says, “Didn’t think things’d get this heavy _this _fast. Isn’t the conversation supposed to get _easier_ after two of your friends tell you they’re gay?”

Eddie laughs wetly, more out of surprise than actual amusement.

“Sorry about that,” Mike says as lightly as he can. “Sorry, Eddie. For bringing it up.”

“No, you’re right, it’s important,” Eddie mumbles. On paper, he says, _‘You guys are going to give me a heart attack. But you don’t owe me an apology. Thanks for pulling him out.’_

A line break, a space between the words, and then, _‘And Richie – you’re a fucking idiot, but thank you for not giving up on me.’ _Then and now, he thinks._ ‘Just don’t ever let me catch you almost dying about it, asshole.’_

He sets that one beside Richie’s hand and listens as Mike continues, “But how about this? Maybe we can’t know for sure if you’re here _and _there or just here”—

“He’s here either way,” Richie says again. “I’ve touched him enough to know.”

“Well, that’s my point,” Mike says excitedly. “Eddie can’t pass through things even when he’s invisible, right?”

“Yeah, because he’s the worst fucking ghost I’ve ever seen.”

“You haven’t seen any other ghosts, dickwad,” Eddie tells him.

“I see what you’re getting at, though,” Bev says. “He’s solid all the time. We just can’t always interact with him.”

Ben nods along with them. “And if he didn’t have a body, there wouldn’t be any reason he _couldn’t_ just pass through things.”

“Or possess people,” Richie adds unhelpfully. “I still say you should try that, though.”

“I’d possess you first,” Eddie snaps, “except there’d be no point because I couldn’t think of anything stupid to say that you wouldn’t say yourself, anyway.”

Everyone else just ignores the comment. Bill says, “So we’d just have to find a way to keep him grounded?”

“I’d still be dead,” Eddie says, and he puts a hand on Richie’s shoulder to steady himself against the threat of deeply disturbing mental images. If Richie could feel him at all, he’d feel him shaking.

“And that’s where the defibrillator comes in, huh?” Richie says. “Or we have a fucking ambulance ready.”

“Still thinking about trying to just hold him here?” Ben says.

“I haven’t heard any better ideas.”

_Well you’d better come up with some,_ Eddie thinks.

“Do you think it could just be fixing itself?” Bill offers. “Like Mikey said, it’s like he’s… getting stronger?”

“Well, his wound isn’t,” Richie says. “We bandaged it, but”—

He stops.

At first Eddie assumes it’s because he’s seen his note, but Richie doesn’t drop his hand back to the table mid-gesture to pick it up. He says, “Except – I’m not exactly an expert, but if it healed, could it heal from the inside out? It’d be hard to tell then.”

Eddie doesn’t know. A glance around the table confirms that no one else does either. Mike jokes, “This would be easier if any of us had become doctors.”

“Yeah, Eddie,” Richie says, but his mouth’s starting to quirk up into a smile.

“I think it’s worth hoping for,” Beverly says after another moment’s pause. “It doesn’t sound so impossible.”

It does to Eddie, but then Richie says, “Impossible’s never stopped us before,” and if he lets himself think _what if _about this, too, he can almost see it.

He can almost see a future beyond all the fear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I literally cannot believe this fic has exceeded 70,000 words! That's the longest single fic I've ever written, which is simultaneously exciting and very daunting. To everyone who's still sticking with me, thank you! There's still a bit to go, but we're in the endgame here at this point!


	20. Chapter 20

Before everyone heads out for the night, Richie somehow remembers to ask Beverly what she’d originally been calling about before he and Eddie completely derailed it. It wasn’t like he’d been intending to ask, but the thought occurs to him and he voices it because he might as well; he’s still working off the lingering awkwardness of coming out, after all, so really any distraction would do.

Maybe because they’re all feeling just a little more optimistic at that point, anyway, it turns out to be a nice note to end on. Ben suggests postponing their night out when Mike assures them that he won’t be too jet-lagged to join them for drinks a few hours after his flight gets in two days from now, and Richie promises to figure out exactly how many minutes they need to start allowing for Eddie’s messages to appear – the better to include him in what promises to be another boisterous evening, now with one-hundred-percent less fortune cookies with eyes and tentacles.

It’s Bill’s fault, mostly, that Richie still winds up crying again for what feels like the billionth time today. The last thing he does before he joins Ben and Bev in the hall outside Richie’s apartment is wrap Richie up in a hug and say, “Thank you for trusting all of us, for – for trusting me, and I’m sorry you felt like you had to keep it a secret for so long.”

Richie doesn’t waste much effort on keeping his cool; he’s too surprised to, and as Bill’s words sink in he finds himself at a total loss for any of his own.

Fortunately, Bill doesn’t make him come up with any. When he lets go of Richie, he gives his forearm a little squeeze and adds, “It’s like what you told me. You love him.”

It’s not a question, but Richie nods anyway. He catches Ben smiling warmly at him over Bill’s shoulder, and Bev beside him with the same lightly teasing grin he’s thrown their way more than once. Fair’s fair, he supposes.

“And he loves you.”

Richie laughs, then, giddy and weepy at the same time, and says, “Somehow.”

“Then you’ll make it work,” Bill says, and Richie feels several more tears roll down his cheeks when he blinks in surprise. He remembers telling Bill that, and he also remembers believing it, but the kicker then and now is that he never once believed the same thing could possibly apply to him.

Behind him, Beverly corrects, “_We’ll _make it work,” and Bill gives them all a wide, confident smile as he steps back to leave.

“Thank you,” Richie tells them, and even though he can’t feel him or hear him and he doesn’t have a note pressed into his open hand, it just feels right to say, “From Eddie, too.”

And then he’s alone – _kind of _alone, anyway – and for a long moment after the door clicks shut and the retreating footsteps of his friends become gradually less audible on their way down the hall, he drinks in the silence and feels the slow, steady weight of exhaustion sink all the way into his bones. For the first time in a long time, he doesn’t say anything on his way back to the couch. He’ll clean up and get ready for bed in a minute or twenty, but for now he just needs to soak it all in, and he’d rather do that lying down and comfortable.

The next time he opens his eyes, there’s a slip of paper sitting on his chest.

It’s been folded neatly in half, so Richie has to open it and then adjust his glasses from where they’ve slipped partway down his nose. The note says, _‘Are you okay?’ _It comes as a relief that Eddie’s handwriting is back to its usual neatness.

“I’m fine, Eds,” Richie says, but he doesn’t sit up right away. “Actually, I’m pretty hungry. And tired. Mostly tired.” He picks at the torn edge of the paper and casts a surreptitious glance around the room before asking, “Where are you, anyway?”

It’s a weird transition from _not seeing_ to _seeing_ something nearly right where he expects it to be. This time, Eddie’s written several things, spaced apart to indicate that they’re meant to be separate thoughts. Richie smiles in quiet amusement; he might as well have made a bulleted list of short sentences: _‘You should eat then. I know what you mean – long day.’ _And then finally, _‘Right beside you. Sitting on the floor.’_

Frowning, Richie pushes himself upright and swings his legs off the other half of the couch. “So come up here, then. That can’t be comfortable.”

He waits patiently, drowsily slumped against the cushions and scanning the flat surfaces around him, and snaps up the next slip of paper the second he spots it beside him.

_‘Eat, Richie.’_

His heart sinks. “It wouldn’t hurt to be a little closer, would it? You can’t just assume something bad’ll happen.” _We’ll never get anywhere like that._

_‘I can’t assume it won’t,’ _Eddie’s next note says. _‘I’m sorry, Richie.’_

Richie tries to hide his disappointment, although he doubts he’s doing a very good job of it despite the smile he immediately pastes on over the frown his face wants to make. He doesn’t ask Eddie the question that rushes to his lips, either, because he knows the answer, anyway, and it would be selfish to make Eddie reassure him of it. Instead, he just sighs in a way he hopes comes off as casually fond – or fondly casual? – and says, “Okay, fine, but that means you have to watch me eat some of those Oreos with dinner.”

He makes good on that threat, although he also makes a point of selecting a slightly bruised apple to go with the sandwich he throws together first. He tries to focus on the taste over the ache that keeps pressing at him, but it’s really not compelling enough to serve as a distraction.

At some point, he catches sight of another torn page near his plate.

_‘What’s eating you?’_

“_I’m _eating _it,_” Richie corrects sarcastically, and brandishes the sandwich to illustrate his point. He doesn’t say anything else, figuring Eddie will drop it – or banking on it, really.

He can all but hear Eddie irritably snapping the contents of the next note at him: _‘You’re seriously gonna make me use another page to ask you again?’_

“That just means I can outlast you in any argument,” Richie tells him, but now he’s starting to feel like an asshole, so he also says, “Okay, okay, but I’m warning you now, I’m gonna start sounding like a broken record about this shit.”

He puts the sandwich down, his appetite fading anyway the more he lets himself actually think about putting his fears into words. “It’s just – I know it’s not, but I guess – if I could hear it from you. That it isn’t because of me, even a little. You’d want to touch me if you thought you could, right?”

He hates how fucking _small _he sounds by the end of it, how vulnerable, and he digs back into the sandwich after a moment just to give his face something to do that isn’t crying.

The next note isn’t folded, and it’s face-up, dead-center in front of him so he can more or less read it even without picking it up.

_‘All the time,’ _it says. _‘I want to all the time. I’d want to be near you even if you were a fucking zombie.’_

Richie nearly chokes on a surprised laugh. “So you’re quoting me, now? I’ll have you know that’s copyrighted material.”

_‘What are you gonna do about it, sue me?’_

Richie snorts. “Touché – and thank you. For putting up with me. I’m sorry for being a pain. Obviously I think this no touching thing is stupid since _neither _of us likes it, but if it makes you feel better, I’ll live.”

Either the day’s exhaustion is making Richie less observant than he’s realized, or Eddie must take a while to mull that over, because it isn’t until Richie’s finished off the remainder of his meal and made it five Oreos into the package that he notices a new leaf of paper sitting off to the side.

_‘You aren’t a pain, Rich. I don’t want to smother you but just know I’ve made a really stupid habit of saying some of the things I think about you and I could go on for a really long time if you let me. So if you need to hear it’ – _and that bit is neatly crossed out, followed by – _‘see it anyway, sorry. Just say the word.’_

And at the bottom of the page, written very small and still carried on to the back of the paper: _‘And fuck you for eating those in front of me I swear to god I’m so jealous.’_

Richie re-reads it several times, even the last part, because it makes him smile. “I should take up scrapbooking,” he says at last. “I think I still have all the shit I wrote to you when I was sick. Add in some spirit photographs and it’d be a hit with the horror crowd.”

He eats one more Oreo for good measure – and he _really _tries to make an obnoxious show of how good it is, because he can – before he clears the table and sets about washing the mugs and plates from his less-than-ideal two square meals of the day. He doesn’t need a note from Eddie to know he’s probably less than thrilled about that, so he vows to do a little better tomorrow.

He jumps a little when he feels something brush against his shoulder. “Eds?”

No response. Typical. He goes back to his dishes and has nearly forgotten about the sensation when he sees another paper just out of reach of the drying rack he’d been about to put the last dish in.

It says, _‘Okay fine, a little touching. But just a little.’_

Richie grins, halfway smug and more relieved than he’d expected to be. “Okay, Eddie Spaghetti. Gotcha.”

Eddie leaves him several more notes as he works on getting ready for bed. One of them is just a mildly bewildering list of directions followed by a belated, rushed-looking note explaining that it’s a better way to clean puke out of carpeting. _‘Not that you should worry about it tonight,’ _Eddie’s written at the end of it. _‘You look awful. Go the fuck to bed.’_

“Wow, is that one of those nice things you think about me all the time? I’m flattered.”

Eddie gets him good on that front, though, because the last note he’s left for Richie is sitting on the bedside table when he emerges from the bathroom, some half-baked comment about Eddie’s old clothes being stuffed unceremoniously into the trash bin in there dying on his lips when he sees it.

_‘Has anyone ever told you how nice your laugh is? I’d give anything to kiss it out of you’_

Richie’s so flustered that it takes him a _long _time to fall asleep even after some of the heat has finally left his face.

-*-

Beverly opens their group chat’s morning conversation the next day with a question. Richie’d been working on gradually regaining consciousness already when the sudden vibration sends an unfortunate spike of adrenaline through him. Once he’s recovered from the initial scare, he groans and shoves his glasses on to read the text, which doesn’t do a lot to calm his nerves. _‘Do you think it’s because of the Deadlights?’_

There’s already a little typing bubble indicating Bill’s halfway through a response.

_‘But Eddie wasn’t caught in them_.’

_‘Not Eddie. Bev and Richie,’ _Ben corrects.

_‘Yeah, and we’re the only ones who can see him,’ _Beverly points out.

Richie groans and rolls back onto the bed. _‘Good morning to u too,’ _he types, and then in a separate message, _‘But you can all kind of hear him.’_

_‘I thought that was obvious,’ _Mike chimes in – kind of a surprise, given how early it would have to be back in Florida. Richie still wonders when or if Mike ever sleeps.

He notices that there’s a second slip of paper sitting beside the one from last night, and picks it up while he tries to force his brain to get with the program.

_‘Good morning! You forgot to leave the TV on last night,’ _and there’s a comically bad drawing of a frowny face under that.

Richie huffs a little. “Forgot, sorry… ‘D you spend the night here with me instead?”

He gets up to wash his face – or, well, to splash some cold water on it – and when he comes back there’s a note on his pillow that says, _‘Yes. It helps.’_

Richie’s brow furrows. “Helps with what? Did you have a rough night?” Because Richie didn’t, and he’s beginning to wonder how much of that has had to do with Eddie being there all this time. “…Do you spend a lot of nights with me? And – can I sit here?” – he gestures at the edge of the bed and hopes he’s given Eddie enough time to move if he needs to before he sits down – “Where are you now?”

He picks his phone back up and texts the Losers for, according to the clock, only about a minute or two before a piece of paper appears in his lap.

“Why, Eddie,” he teases, mock-scandalized, and picks it up.

_‘Kind of – a rough night and’ –_

There’s an awkward break, followed by _‘Too many questions! Give me a minute!’_

Eddie’s handwriting gets a little neater after that. _‘Almost every night. Actually every night. I wasn’t going to this time but I’ – _and the “but I” has been scribbled out in a hurry only to be rewritten exactly the same – _‘but I couldn’t calm down.’_

The next one comes even quicker, like Eddie had really rushed to put it down beside the first. _‘I’m usually right next to you, Richie.’_

Richie turns to look at the comforter beside him. “Here?”

This time, Eddie’s response takes closer to three minutes, according to the clock on Richie’s phone, which he watches a lot more closely than the incoming messages in the group chat; the subject of the conversation is just starting to turn to plans for the day when Richie blinks and finds a piece of paper neatly eclipsing the entire screen. _‘You could’ve told me you were going to time me. And yes, there, except a little more to the left.’_

“It’s for science,” Richie says defensively, adjusting his gaze accordingly to smile – he hopes – right at Eddie. “I’m trying to get a good estimate going. More importantly, what about now? Are you doing better after a good night’s rest?”

Eddie’s response comes in less than two minutes; it says, _‘Not really. I hate this. I hate everything about this. It feels better being clean, but I want to talk to you like a normal fucking person. I want to sleep. I want to feel like I’m living in a real body.’_

Richie winces. “Sorry. I know. I guess it’s probably a trip – you know, being awake all the fucking time.” As if that even begins to cover it.

While he tries to come up with something better to say than that, he catches a glimpse of a text with his name in it and briefly skims back over the chat, paying marginally more attention to it this time. His long silence hasn’t gone unnoticed, apparently. Richie’s not entirely sure if Eddie’s already reading along with him, so at the risk of sounding redundant he decides to make sure they’re on the same page, anyway. “Everyone’s asking about you…” A few more texts pop up on the screen. “And they’re asking if we want to grab a breakfast-slash-lunch thing in a little bit… which probably doesn’t help to hear right now.”

After a few minutes pass without any sign of a response from Eddie, Richie sighs and gets up again to pick out a few things to wear – including a Hawaiian shirt, which he waves playfully in the direction of the bed as he reemerges from the closet.

“So we’ll match,” he explains with a shit-eating grin.

It’s not a bad effort at cheering Eddie up, Richie thinks. He decides he can wait until he’s showered to see if it’s helped; if he’s lucky, Eddie won’t even notice that he rushes the whole process so much that he’s done in probably record time, or if he does, he’ll attribute it at least partially to their impending breakfast date. Brunch? Richie’s never known with one-hundred-percent certainty when brunch is supposed to be, but it sounds about right.

He can’t keep a relieved smile off his face when he comes out to not one, but two new pieces of paper lying on his pillow.

He goes for the one with the most writing crammed onto it first. _‘I’m only asking this once and don’t you dare make fun of me for it’ – _“I wouldn’t,” Richie vows before he’s even read past that – _‘and obviously I won’t hold it against you if you don’t want to, but I think I’d like it if you tried to describe what things are like. Eating and sleeping and stuff. Not all the time, but if you think of anything.’_

There’s a heart drawn at the bottom of the paper. Better yet, there’s an adorable little postscript, literally: _‘p.s. You’re doing plenty for me already, though. You make this easier than it has any right to be; it’s no one’s fault it’s bound to be really hard sometimes anyway.’_

_‘Tell everyone I said hi.’_

“God, I love you,” Richie breathes. “Anything I can do, of course I fucking want to. You know me, I love to talk – I’m no _Bill_, but I think we can string a few words together about the most mundane shit on the planet.”

He doesn’t even know why Eddie wants him to do it. Sooner or later, he’s sure to get curious enough to ask, but he all he _needs _to know is that Eddie’s directly asked him for something that’ll make him happy, and it’s _weird _how incredibly fucking good it feels to be able to give it to him.

The other note, when Richie stops gushing long enough to look at it, just says, _‘I think I wore it better.’ _Because of course it does.

-*-

Richie asks him later if he can extend that request to the other Losers, too, and Eddie agrees with some trepidation. He doesn’t know what Richie thinks of it, but to Eddie, it’s embarrassingly childish at best – and, at worst, tantamount to telling them all point-blank how much he fears for his own humanity. In a lot of ways it feels like he’s revealing something just as deeply personal as his sexuality and his love for Richie, except that in this case it isn’t good or even neutral, and all it makes him feel is bad.

He agrees despite all of that because if there’s anything he knows about the lot of them, it’s that they can be trusted not to use it against him. That they’ll help him, and that it won’t be about making him feel weak when they do.

Richie just makes it _especially_ easy for Eddie to trust him with the fragile parts of himself; he blushes and jokes his way through the first time he tries to describe all the flowery details of how it feels to drink a cup of too-hot coffee. He manages to singe his tongue in his self-conscious distraction, but he doesn’t give up even then, and he’s a lot better at it than he gives himself credit for. He even gets some much-needed laughs out of Eddie by really overplaying the burn and spending the rest of the day on and off talking with the tip of his tongue hanging grossly out of his mouth. It’s a transparent attempt at distracting Eddie, and it’s stupid and it _works_ and Eddie loves him for it.

Even when Richie’s descriptions do fall short of being so vivid Eddie can almost feel them, just listening makes Eddie feel that much more connected to the living world. It’s a little like the feeling of recalling all those long-buried childhood memories, formative parts of himself he’d been cut off from; if telling the other Losers means Richie will keep it up just as much around them, then that alone makes it worth it.

It goes over the way new and interesting ideas always have in their friend group; one quick text from Richie that night, and suddenly there’s a flood of excited agreement. Eddie hadn’t even considered that they’d appreciate being handed more to do to help; it’s like everyone sees it as that _and _as a fun, creative challenge. They immediately love it, and Eddie wonders why he’d worried so much in the first place.

When Mike implies that Bill’s sure to do it best, Beverly chimes in to remind them all that Ben’s “way with words” had _literally _brought the two of them together – until she thinks better of that, too, and says that _if _they decided to make a game of it, she could and would trounce all of them – but that between her and Ben, it would be _close. _

The chat spirals chaotically from there, in classic Losers’ Club fashion. Eddie writes a note to Richie asking him to tell them that they have his blessing if they do want to compete about it, but that they should expect some stiff competition from Richie.

He _maybe _says it mostly to get a rise out of Richie, and he’s positive Richie knows it, too, but he still faithfully reproduces the message for everyone to see. He even snaps a picture of it and sends it to everyone.

_‘That’s not fair, you’re biased in his favor!’ _Bev complains.

_‘Yeah, we need an impartial judge,’ _Ben says. _‘Like me.’_

_‘Like you wouldn’t name Bev the winner in a heartbeat,’ _Mike says, beating Richie to it.

_‘Aren’t I supposed to be the expert here?’ _Bill offers.

_‘Nah, that’s Mike,’ _Richie tells them instead. _‘he’s a librarian and you’re just one author,’ _followed by one of those little faces that’s laughing so hard it’s got tears coming out of its eyes.

Bill responds with another little face, except this one’s _just_ crying.

Richie and Eddie both snort at that.

_‘What do we stand to win, anyway?’ _Mike asks.

_‘First shot at giving Eddie a hug when we all see him?’_

Eddie’s chest tightens a little at that.

_‘Richie! Ask Eddie if he likes that idea!’ _Bev demands.

_‘He’s reading this too u kno,’ _Richie texts. When he glances up, it’s with a gently concerned look. “Should I tell them to knock it off? You know how I love to be the one who ‘beep beep’s someone else.”

_‘Eddie!’ _Bev prompts again.

Eddie sighs and leaves a bit of paper on the arm of the chair Richie’s sitting in. Richie’s only missed two or three of his notes so far, and never for very long; he’s _constantly _on the lookout for them, enough so that Eddie’s caught him looking excited and then immediately disappointed by a ton of false alarms. He also couldn’t fail to notice how carefully Richie’s collected every last one of Eddie’s notes and stowed them in a hastily cleaned-out drawer beside the one that’s still stuffed with empty notebooks. It’s sweet, but it also puts an ache in Eddie that’s hard to shake.

Eddie’s already down to the last few pages of the first notebook, after all; he’s had to reassure himself more than once that it won’t take all of them for him to have a shot at picking up more. He’s still trying to slow down on them, anyway. What’s _harder_ to convince himself of is that they won’t run all the way through that whole drawer of notebooks eventually.

He doesn’t think he could last that long; at least in the case of actual snail mail, they used to also have landlines. All he has is a two-to-five minute delay and a finite number of trees to kill for it.

_‘We’ve been over this,’ _this latest note begins, but it’s more out of principle than anything, because for all the tension in him he’s just as filled with warmth. _‘But fine – with supervision. Also, you guys know Richie and Bev have already had that chance, right?’_

Richie grins. “Yeah, and I’m calling dibs on first hug, anyway. Wanna offer them the chance to pick a group movie instead?”

“Oh, good one,” Eddie agrees, and leaves a second note to that effect.

So much for saving paper.

-*-

“Tell me when I finally reach the point of TMI,” Richie tells him on their way to pick Mike up from the airport the following evening. “If you don’t I _will _keep going way past it. Oh my god – unless I’ve _already_ gone past it,” he adds in exaggeratedly feigned horror. “I’ve probably scandalized you talking about the five thousand different kinds of sweating you can do in sunny California.”

“Oh, you’ve missed a few I can think of,” Eddie remarks sarcastically. It’s one of those comments he’s _mostly _relieved that Richie probably won’t be able to hear, although the look on his face would have been priceless.

As it turns out, it is.

“I heard that,” Richie says through a sudden bout of laughter. His cheeks are dusted pink, and his mouth hangs open in a wide, surprised grin. “Holy _shit_, Eds, of all the things”—and then he has to swerve terrifyingly abruptly into a turn before he misses it, and Eddie only resists the urge to leave him a catty note because it would only serve to distract him more. Richie apologizes, anyway, but this time he really _doesn’t_ seem to hear Eddie’s exasperated response.

Which is a shame, because he’d be all too willing to complain endlessly about not being able to wear a seatbelt to anyone who’d listen. Richie would if he could, and he’d also tease Eddie for it. A ghost wearing a seatbelt. It does sound like the punch line of a joke Eddie doesn’t care to come up with the rest of.

Richie all but launches himself out of the car the second he’s caught sight of Mike waiting by one of the arrival gates. His parking job is unimpressive, to say the least; Eddie tries to at least turn his hazard lights on for him, but he can’t depress the button even slightly. He watches instead as Mike steps off the curb to sweep Richie up into a hug and tries to ignore the sharp, jagged thing gnawing at him from the pit of his stomach and the back of his mind. Richie’d been in too much of a hurry to remember to open the door for him this time, so he can’t do anything _but _sit and watch and feel stupidly, selfishly left-out.

He can’t expect Richie to devote every waking second to him; he practically does as it is, and that’s a lot more than a dead man has any right to take from –

“Eds!”

Eddie smothers the familiar, stubborn flicker of hope when he turns his attention back to Richie and Mike; he hadn’t even realized he’d looked away, back to his finger where it continues to rest uselessly against the smooth, untouchable dash of Richie’s car.

Richie is staring right through him, but his eyes are bright and his arm’s hooked around Mike’s shoulders. He’s waving without a care in the world for any onlookers who might wonder who or what the fuck he’s waving _at, _and Mike follows suit only marginally more hesitantly, his gait thrown off by Richie’s weight on him.

It’s like that with Richie – his enthusiasm is contagious. Eddie finds himself waving back and breaking into a softer version of his friends’ smiles without really thinking about it. With his other hand, he very intentionally flips Richie the bird, and then he rushes to write a single word on a note he leaves on his side of the dashboard, hoping that it has enough time to materialize there while Richie helps Mike load his bags into the trunk.

_‘Shotgun.’_

-*-

They wind up driving straight to a rooftop bar from Mike’s hotel just as soon as Richie’s helped him check in and bundle his luggage up to his room. While they’re busy doing that, there isn’t much opportunity for Eddie to leave a note that would have to remain stationary long enough for either of them to see it, so it isn’t until they’re already on their way there that he gets a chance to pass a second note back to Mike.

_‘You look tired, dude, are you good?’_

When Mike catches sight of it on the seat beside him, he looks so genuinely amazed that it takes him a moment to actually pick the page up to read it.

“What did he say?” Richie calls back to him. Eddie would wonder at his sixth sense the way Mike seems to if he weren’t so well aware of how many times Richie’s heard the rustle of identical slips of paper in his own hands.

“He says I look tired,” Mike says with a sheepish laugh. “I’m okay, Eddie. Besides, it’s still three hours earlier back home” – and then he cuts himself off with a wide smile, and Eddie immediately understands why.

Richie grins at him in the rearview mirror. “Aw, Mike.”

“I know, and it hasn’t even been that long,” Mike says. He sounds a little embarrassed, but more than that, he sounds proud and content in a way he hasn’t in what Eddie guesses must be years. “It’s nice, though, you know? Picking a place and making it work. I’ve even been thinking about getting a dog.”

Richie, of course, takes that as his cue to dive right into a list of increasingly stupid dog names, leaving Eddie to wrestle with the big, mushy grin he can’t keep off his face. It’s wide enough to pull at the bandage he’s taped over his cheek wound, and somewhere deep down he thinks he’d give anything for Richie to see it, because he’d know it’s because Eddie _does _know, because he’s picked his place, too.

They all have, in their various ways.

_‘Congrats, Mike,’ _he writes. _‘Just promise you’ll pick a better name than literally any of those.’_

“Actually, I was thinking Mr. Chips,” Mike says, cutting Richie off mid-overly-long-name-with-a-fancy-title-tacked-on. “Hey, don’t look at me, technically Eddie interrupted first.”

“He _totally _insulted my name ideas, didn’t he?”

“I wouldn’t have to if you came up with better ones,” Eddie tells him. “If we ever adopt a dog you’re _so _not” – and then he stops, not because Mike is laughing and saying something else in response, but because the pang of longing that half-finished thought sends tearing through him takes his breath away.

He’s still dazed by the time they pull up to the bar – chosen half just for the necessary convenience of something relatively central, as late as it is at this point. Richie opts for the valet parking and opens the door for Eddie before the uniformed driver can get a word in to ask for his keys. Eddie watches Mike watch the exchange and almost trips over the curb on his way out of the vehicle.

“Who’d’ve thought the Trashmouth would turn out to be the smoothest one of us?” Mike teases gently once they’ve finished trading keys for a numbered tag and started inside. From what Eddie’s gathered, the other three are already here, but they didn’t beat them by much.

Richie flushes all the way to the collar of his shirt. Mike immediately looks ready to apologize for the comment, but Richie heads him off with a shaky breath and says, “Yeah, I’m a real paragon of smooth romance. Or doesn’t everyone puke when they try to touch their – the guy they’re seeing – in front of other people?”

“Sorry”—

“No – shit, it’s fine, I’m trying to – that wasn’t supposed to get so…”

“Real?” Mike guesses. “Seriously, I’m sorry for putting you on the spot.”

“He _is_ smooth,” Eddie offers to fill the ensuing silence between the two of them. His hand is so close to Richie’s, and Mike’s watching him, anyway, so he lets himself risk grabbing it in the awkward way he has to because Richie can’t feel him and doesn’t know to accommodate the light touch.

Richie leads them past the hostess with a charming little grin – like he’d heard Eddie on some level and just wants to make sure he _knows_ how right he is – and another moment passes before he lets another soft sigh slip and says, “You didn’t, really. I don’t want you guys walking on eggshells with me, alright? I have – uh, a lot to work on, I guess. But I’m okay. I’m a lot more okay than I thought I’d be a month ago.”

Mike holds Richie’s gaze for long enough to find something in it that seems to satisfy him. He gives Richie a pat on the shoulder, then, and says, “Alright, then. But if I cross any lines I shouldn’t, let me know. You, too, Eddie.”

“Will do,” Eddie murmurs, soaking up the casual recognition like a lizard in the sun.

They find Bev, Ben and Bill lounged out on a semicircle of couches facing a short, long table. There are drinks sitting in front of them already, but they look pretty much untouched. Even at a glance it’s obvious that Bev and Ben are entirely too wrapped up in each other to notice the three of them approaching; Bill is texting someone – Audra seems like a safe guess – with a private, happy little smile on his face, but he still happens to glance up in time to meet them halfway and give first Mike and then Richie a hug.

“Hey,” Mike laughs. “Big Bill!”

“Mikey,” Bill says, and starts to pull him back toward the table. “Come on, all of you – Richie, Eddie’s with you, right?”

“Yeah, we’ve talked,” Mike tells him, and obligingly takes a seat right beside Bill.

Ben smiles. “It’s kinda cool how he does that with the notes, right?”

_‘Cool for you,’ _Eddie grouches. _‘Slow for me.’_

It’s not like they have any reason to expect a response from him, though, so the conversation continues unabated and inevitably makes his comment seem desperately out of place by the time Ben leans forward to read it aloud to the rest of them.

“Shit, sorry, Eddie,” he says right away.

“It takes a few minutes,” Richie cuts in. “You just have to wait sometimes, that’s all.”

_‘That’ – _but Eddie scribbles that bit out, suspecting that it won’t make much sense come a few minutes from now when they’ve all got drinks in hand and are deeper in conversation, fooling around and forgetting to help him keep up, so instead he sighs and writes, _‘Waiting forever in between everything anyone says doesn’t make sense. I’ll’ – _live, he thinks before he realizes how fucking stupid it sounds and awkwardly writes _‘be fine’ _instead. _‘It’s nice just being here,’ _he tells them, which is true, even if it’s not all of the truth.

That note catches them midway through a discussion of Floridian alligators, which seems to be a favorite topic of Richie’s. Eddie would think he was just banking on his limited knowledge of Florida to get him through a conversation about it if it weren’t for the way his eyes light up when Mike tells them all about the one that crawled into his neighbor’s yard not even a week into his living there. “That’s my main concern about a dog,” Mike explains, all excited hand gestures and big smiles. “I’ll have to keep it inside or under direct supervision all the time, but plenty of people seem to manage it fine.”

“Have you seen any _really _giant ones?” Richie asks at the same time as Beverly says, “So are they really as big as people say?” – and Eddie thinks, well, they didn’t exactly grow up with giant, sharp-toothed lizards wandering around everywhere.

If they had, their various trips down to the sewers probably would’ve gone a lot worse.

Eddie considers telling Richie that, because he’ll definitely remember some bizarrely relevant creature feature – or even an old cartoon, Eddie’s pretty sure he’s got an episode or two on the tip of his own tongue – and he wants to listen to Richie talking about tired horror tropes and practical effects.

He cuts himself off before he can put pen to paper; they’re only just now reading his last note, after all, and that just… makes it feel so pointless.

Of course everyone rushes to reassure him that he can and should keep talking to them, that they’ll slow it down and stay on topic longer for his sake – and they do, really, but Eddie can’t help the pain of being trapped on the sidelines despite everyone’s efforts to the contrary, so he nevertheless lets his notes get gradually shorter and farther between as the night wears on. He suspects that Richie will notice – probably has already, if the worried glances he keeps sending Eddie’s way are any indication – and he’s sure he’ll ask him about it later, but right now it hurts too much to fake something he can’t have.

It’s such a nice night. It’s a normal outing, and they’re all together. Richie radiates warmth more and more noticeably the cooler it gets outside, and he’s close enough to Eddie’s side that he can _just _feel the gentle vibrations of his laughter. The city around them is too bright for any stars to be visible, but Eddie doubts any of them mind whatever reprieve from darkness they can get, still.

He hates that it doesn’t feel like enough.

He hates it enough to stew in it, and at some point, the ache becomes physical.

It seems like such a natural progression – because all emotions feel like _something_, even to Eddie in his not-quite-alive state – and it starts out so subtle that Eddie doesn’t register it as actual pain until they’re all standing up to leave and he has to grab onto Richie to steady himself against the sudden onslaught of twisting _hurt_ that shoots up all four of his limbs and converges in his chest. It feels like a full-body muscle spasm, and it knocks the breath out of him so completely that for a moment, he panics.

He panics, and he realizes that he’s been too quiet for too long, that the pain isn’t fading even slightly and that he can barely manage to follow Richie back out into the street, let alone tell him something’s wrong.

But something _is _wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: daylight saving time ended as I was sleepily finishing up the end of this chapter, and I absolutely did not realize that was supposed to happen tonight. What a pleasant but extremely confusing surprise to look up at the clock and see that it said 1 am again!


	21. Chapter 21

Something isn’t right.

They amass a pretty impressive stack of torn-out bits of paper through the night, and the rest of the Losers look impressed and relieved every time another appears, but Richie’s had two days to get over the novelty of talking to Eddie through notes that appear like magic out of thin air. He’s had two days to adjust to a slowed-down version of their familiar back-and-forth, and he’s had two days to learn a few of the tells that manage to make it into Eddie’s writing. The omissions, the tremors, the dog-eared corners, the scribbling and underlining and crinkled edges.

Even if none of that were the case, though, it wouldn’t take an intuitive genius to recognize that Eddie’s withdrawing from everyone, taking his worries and letting himself shrink against them. He used to bottle things up like that from time to time when they were kids, too – until Richie inevitably provoked him into an explosion, anyway – which is how Richie knows he’s not the only one who notices.

He’s just the one whose thoughts start to catch on what’s missing in the midst of an evening spent with friends. They’re all wrapped up in the glow of it, catching up and joking and laughing, and Richie can’t do it without Eddie – or, at least, no more fully than Eddie can be there with them. Half of him has fun while the other half worries more and more the shorter and less enthusiastic Eddie’s comments get.

When Richie gets up to follow everyone else out, he’s startled out of his thoughts by a cold grip on his arm. It’s accompanied by a sharp tug that’s just shy of enough to unbalance him, and it comes from the side he’d left open for Eddie to sit with him.

He opens his mouth to say something, but the weight doesn’t let up; if anything, the pull gets more unmistakably heavy, and Richie thinks, more urgently now than any of the dozens of times he’s already thought it in the past couple of hours, _Something’s not right._

But the others are already leaving and he can’t wait up for a response from Eddie, so he doesn’t ask what’s wrong. He doesn’t think, he just follows them out, his gait made awkward by the increasing strain of dragging Eddie along with him. He makes a careful effort to keep his arm immobile and his right side away from anyone who might pass too close to the still-invisible figure clinging to him.

He takes it slow, but his heart is hammering in his chest; he’s trying not to assume the worst, but Eddie’s been so adamant about keeping the touching to a minimum. While the line that constitutes “too much” in his mind isn’t super clear to Richie, this seems like it obviously crosses it. There has to be some reason Eddie’s pulling a sudden 180 on this, and Richie can’t think of any _good _ones.

He’s so worried, he doesn’t even have time to enjoy it.

He starts to lag so far behind the group that when he finally catches up to them on the sidewalk, they’re all looking back at him with curious looks that shift to concerned when they notice the look on his face.

“Did something happen?” Beverly asks.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I – I could just be overreacting. I just,” and he nods at his arm, which is starting to feel the strain of being held stiffly in place under the drag of what now feels like a good portion of Eddie’s full weight. “I think something’s wrong. I can feel him” – he’s cut off with a wince as the grip on his arm tightens. He doesn’t know if Eddie’s actually reacting to what he’s saying, or if Richie’s just belatedly feeling a touch that was already there.

“Okay,” Bill says without hesitation. “Mike, can you take Richie’s car?”

“What?”

“Of course,” Mike says. “Got the ticket handy, Rich?”

Richie just looks at all of them in numb confusion until Ben comes up to deliver a gentle nudge to the side of him that isn’t attached to a possibly distressed ghost and explains, “So we can get you both home without forcing Eddie to let go.”

“If he’s fine, he can write you a note in the backseat, and no harm done,” Mike tells him. “Bill can follow behind and give me a lift back.”

“Do you want us to come with?” Beverly offers.

Richie puts off answering by digging awkwardly in his right-hand jacket pocket with his left hand; it probably looks bizarre, and it takes him an obnoxiously long time to come up with the valet ticket, but he manages somehow and passes it to Mike. He and Ben take all three of their numbers to the stand, and then they’re left to wait for their cars in tense silence.

Finally, Richie sighs and says, “I don’t know what you could do if you did come. I don’t even know if _I _can help, or – what I’m helping _with_. If it’s anything.” And god, he really fucking hopes it’s not.

“Moral support?” Bev suggests, but Richie shakes his head after a moment’s consideration.

“I’ll let you know if anything – I don’t know, happens. I’ll keep you updated.”

“You better,” she tells him. She looks as scared as Richie feels; he doubts any of them will be sleeping much tonight even after the immediate urgency wears off. _If _it wears off.

They take off as soon as they’re able, this time with Richie in the backseat and Mike behind the wheel. The weight at his side lightens as he attempts to maneuver someone he can only kind of touch into the car ahead of him. He tries to be gentle, but he has no idea how successful he is. The grip on his arm doesn’t loosen at all until they’re practically home, which more or less explains why Eddie doesn’t answer any of the questions Mike and Richie both direct at him. Is he okay, what’s going on, can they do anything for him, and so on. The silence is both deafening and surreal; Richie’s never been able to feel Eddie for this long before without also being able to see or hear him.

It’s one of the more ghostly things Eddie’s done, and in proper ghost form it terrifies the hell out of Richie, who begins to regret declining company when he’s finally left alone in his apartment with no one to distract him from how helpless he feels.

“Is this what it’s like for you?” he whispers to the static hum of a quiet room. He can feel Eddie shaking against him; he’d somehow managed to get them as far as the living room couch, but it’s hard to tell if the cushion beside him looks like it’s been depressed at all by Eddie’s presence on it. He can almost feel the vibration of a response, but he can’t hear a thing.

Until a shaky, terrified groan pierces the air and makes him jump.

“Eds?!”

“Don’t – don’t let go,” he hears Eddie croak. “Don’t let go.”

He keeps repeating it like a mantra in between painful-sounding sobs that make Richie’s stomach lurch. Swallowing thickly, Richie turns as much as he can and tries to find Eddie’s back with his free hand. His hand stops in mid-air before it registers the sensation of fabric beneath it.

“I won’t,” he promises. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You heard me,” Eddie sighs, uneven and whisper-quiet. “Thank fucking god.”

“…Sorry.”

He feels Eddie press his head to his upper arm and shake it gently. For a moment, he could swear he catches a flash of dark hair, but it’s like an afterimage in the periphery of his vision; when he tries to focus on it, he can’t see a thing.

“Keep talking, Eds,” Richie says, desperate. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

Eddie’s voice is muffled by Richie’s sleeve. “Hurts…”

“What hurts?”

“…verything,” comes the too-quiet response. Like Eddie’s voice is being carried away on a wave.

“Eds – Eds, I can’t hear you.” Richie rubs at Eddie’s back, anchoring himself as much as he can to any part of him he can feel. “Come on, stay with me.”

He hears Eddie draw in an unsteady breath, like he’s fighting his lungs every step of the way. The sound alone is enough to make Richie’s chest burn in sympathy, and he draws in an automatic lungful of air without even thinking about it. It doesn’t do much to soothe the anxiety clawing at him.

“K-keep touching,” Eddie croaks, louder this time, before he has to stop again to force several slow, ragged breaths.

“I know,” Richie says, drawing him tighter into that protective, one-armed embrace. “I”—

“N-n-no, Richie, something else, th-the remote or”—his voice breaks for a moment before he can get it back – “anything close.”

“Oh,” Richie realizes. He wants him to use some object as a test to make sure he can still move it with Eddie latched onto him. “You’re still worried about that? _Now?_”

“Fuck – _please_,” Eddie hisses at him. Richie gets the impression he’s caught a glimpse of Eddie shooting a halfhearted glare his way – brief and jarring, like those dreams of slipping and falling only to abruptly snap wide awake again.

“Okay, okay – remote’s right here, see?” He has no idea if Eddie’s even looking as he reluctantly takes his hand off his back long enough to stretch his arm toward the side table, so for extra emphasis he drops it the few inches back down to the surface of the table. The noise it makes is so loud that for a moment Richie honestly wonders if he’s broken it, or the glass surface below it.

“Dick,” Eddie grunts, jumping a little. “Just – just keep doing that. But not too often. And not so fucking _loud_,” he complains.

When Richie turns all the way back to Eddie and tries again to catch a glimpse of him, he’s met with the crystal-clear sight of two wide brown eyes looking back at him.

“Well, hello there,” he says dumbly, and Eddie blinks in surprise and relief. His whole expression keeps the edge of pain, though, and he doesn’t stop clinging tightly to Richie’s arm with both of his own. His attempt at a smile is strained, but Richie doubts he’s doing much better at it, given the circumstances.

Eddie’s chest is also shuddering under the obvious effort he’s pouring into keeping oxygen coming. He looks exhausted, like he’d be flushed and sweaty if he could be, and his lips are slightly parted. Unsurprisingly, it takes him a long moment to take in Richie’s furrowed brow, and even longer to answer his unspoken question.

“This breathing shit,” he says, and winces, “it’s really fucking – overrated.”

Richie feels his eyes go wide. “Yeah?”

Eddie just jerks his head in the direction of the remote and says, “Humor me.” Richie sighs and pulls the remote a short distance across the surface of the table, so it’ll be easier to reach next time. Eddie’s eyes track its motion until Richie lets go again, and he sighs softly. “Thanks.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t notice sooner,” Richie tells him. “Do you need an inhaler?” Although where the fuck he’d get one this late at night, Richie doesn’t know. “Or – wanna try some pain meds? Pretty sure all I have is Advil, but it’s better than nothing.”

Eddie wrinkles his nose. “No – don’t think I should. Or _could._”

“Okay,” Richie says gently, and wriggles the fingers of his right hand experimentally. “Uh, not that I’m complaining – at all – but do you think you could ease up a little?” Eddie looks immediately apprehensive, but after a long moment’s hesitation he loosens his grip enough that Richie can finally retrieve his arm. Eddie makes a soft, stricken sound that’s somewhere between a whimper and a sob, but Richie’s already wrapping his arms – both of them, this time – all the way around Eddie, the better to pull him into his lap. His forehead bumps against Richie’s chest, and Richie holds him there.

“Does that help at all?” he says lightly.

Eddie’s shaking like a leaf, his breath coming in uneven bursts. “N-nothing helps. It – it feels like someone’s twisting all my fucking muscles around a fork.”

“Like spaghetti?” Richie asks, and regrets it before the words are all the way out of his mouth. “Beep beep,” he mutters. “Sorry.”

“Asshole,” Eddie mumbles unenthusiastically. “…I’m scared, Rich.”

Richie adjusts their positions so Eddie can curl more easily against Richie; he immediately presses his face into the bend of Richie’s neck. The sensation of Eddie’s breath gusting across the sensitive skin there makes it damn near impossible to formulate an actual response; he thinks Eddie notices, if the gentle press of cool lips to his throat is any indication.

“M-me, too,” Richie admits. In a rush, he asks, “Is it your chest?”

Eddie shifts to look up at him. “Not only that. And not like it did.”

Richie exhales sharply, not quite a laugh. “That’s something, at least.”

“Mm. Rich – remote.”

Richie grabs it and turns the TV on. “Seems like a waste, otherwise,” he tells Eddie when he turns his head to look at the screen. The volume’s already down low, so Richie just clicks right over to _Bob Ross_ and mutters, “Hope you weren’t fucking with me when you said you liked this.”

Eddie laughs weakly. “It’s nice.”

Assuming Eddie’s been keeping up with everything Richie’s left on for him – and Richie suspects he hasn’t – there’s a good chance he’s seen this episode already, but he still pays what might even be a little _too_ much attention to the screen as the tacky opening sequence cuts out and the episode gets underway.

Richie guesses he’s looking for as much distraction as he can get from whatever his body’s doing, so while Eddie watches the TV, Richie watches him; he can’t even put words to the relief he feels when Eddie cracks a smile at the unexpected appearance of a whole armful of squirrels on a show about _painting. _

Eddie’s right, though; it _is _soothing, if also incredibly boring. Richie occupies himself by tracing little patterns into the crook of Eddie’s arm, just below the hem of his shirt. Gradually, he moves down toward his hand with feather-light touches. Eddie twitches a little as Richie’s finger grazes the soft skin on the inside of his arm. Richie looks up to gauge his reaction and finds him staring down at the spot Richie’s touching.

“Sorry,” Richie says, his entire body going cold with an immediate rush of guilt. “I didn’t mean to make you unco”—but Eddie catches his hand before he can yank it back, and Richie’s voice gets stuck around the lump that forms in his throat.

“It feels _good,_” Eddie says, pleading. “The last thing you’re making me is uncomfortable, Rich.”

“It feels good?” Richie echoes, unsure. Eddie’s giving him that piercing look that used to make him worry he could see right through him, but that, at least, is something he doesn’t have to worry about anymore.

Eddie tugs his hand back to where it had been. “_Please _don’t stop,” he says. “Jesus, it’s like I can finally fucking breathe.”

“I’m helping?” Richie checks again, but Eddie just huffs impatiently and Richie doesn’t wait to go back to drawing shapes and writing short words against his skin. Eddie’s bowstring-tense body unfurls just the slightest bit the more he does it, and Richie subtly adjusts his own position to make it easier for Eddie to stretch out on top of him. He trails his free hand up and down Eddie’s back, feeling the slight bulge of layered bandages beneath his clothes and the soft shuddering breaths Eddie takes before that, too, gradually evens out. Eddie’s drifted low enough to press his head to Richie’s chest, ear to his heart, and Richie thinks that’s on purpose, like the way he tangles his legs up in Richie’s.

Everything about it makes Richie’s own body go hot and airy, like if Eddie weren’t weighing him down he’d drift off somewhere far from every stupid doubt he’s ever had about what he’s allowed to want.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re enjoying this even more than I am,” Eddie says. He’s not looking at Richie, but Richie can hear the smile in his voice.

“I’d have to be an idiot not to,” Richie tells him, and if there’s the barest hint of a quaver in his voice, Eddie doesn’t say anything about it. It makes Richie feel bold enough to let his hand glide up along the back of Eddie’s neck to trail through his hair. “Does it still hurt?”

Eddie thinks for a moment. Richie can feel him shifting experimentally, flexing against him. He wonders if Eddie knows how fucking distracting it is.

“I’m… comfortable,” Eddie finally says. _“Actually comfortable_. I – I forgot what this feels like, too.” He sounds like he’s about to start crying, but not necessarily in a bad way, so Richie goes back to tracing patterns against his lower back and lets him sit with the feeling for as long as he needs. He doesn’t feel like he has to rush a response, and Eddie doesn’t prompt him for one, so enough time passes that one episode ends and another begins and the random patterns gradually turn to hearts under Richie’s careful touch. Like the ones Eddie draws for him.

He finally settles on saying, “I love you,” just in time for Eddie to say it too.

Richie’s hand stills against Eddie’s back, and Eddie cranes his head up to meet Richie’s gaze.

“Jinx,” he says, and breaks into a wide grin.

“Hey, we’re having a moment, here,” Richie tells him. “We’re cuddling on my fucking couch over Netflix and I haven’t even puked yet.”

“Not a fan of the ‘yet,’” Eddie says, but his grin doesn’t fade in the slightest. His bony chin is digging into Richie’s chest and the look on his face is so enthusiastically _fond_ that Richie hardly notices. “Also, I could tell you were drawing little hearts all over me, you sap.”

“Uh, I’m not the one leaving handwritten notes about kissing lying by my lover’s bed at night, so exactly _which one of us _is supposed to be the sap here?” And he just called Eddie his lover, like it’s easy because it _is_, and Eddie’s eyes widen a little with the word out in the air between them but he looks happy-surprised, the way Richie feels. If he didn’t already believe in it – because he _has _to, because how could he _not _– this moment alone would be enough to prove to him that magic exists.

Eddie pulls himself just a little farther up Richie’s chest – close enough that Richie can see the spark of mischief in him even before he says, “If you keep looking at me like _that_, I just might have to keep that promise.”

Richie crosses his eyes at him and says, “Like what?”

“Fuck,” Eddie snorts. Despite making a valiant effort not to, he winds up laughing so hard that he actually has to take a minute to catch his breath. “I take it back, I hate you.”

“Do not,” Richie says, and ducks down to press a lingering kiss to Eddie’s forehead.

They’re interrupted right then, as luck would have it, by Richie’s cell phone ringing in his pocket. Even muffled by a layer of fabric, it’s so loud that they both nearly jump out of their skins before Richie can collect himself enough to hiss a very eloquent swear or three and go digging for it. It takes him a minute, given that he’s still using his other arm to hold Eddie flush against him. It’s more to send a message – _we’re not finished here – _than it is to actually keep him where he is; Eddie doesn’t appear to have any intention of moving.

“You did promise to keep them updated,” Eddie reminds him in lieu of helping. Unlike Richie, he has the grace to look a bit sheepish. “They’re probably worried sick.”

Richie finally picks up the call with only a few seconds to spare before it would have gone to voice mail. Eddie’s still watching him, a little apprehensive.

“You guys have to stop interrupting us like this or I’ll be contractually bound to hold a grudge.”

There’s a moment’s hesitation from the other end of the line, followed by Bill saying, “W-well, that doesn’t sound _bad_.”

“Okay, Trashmouth, what’s up with Eddie?” Beverly says with, only somewhat surprisingly, less patience than Bill.

“Are you guys on a group call? Is this a _conference _now?” Richie pulls the phone away from his ear long enough to confirm that, yes, it is. He shows the screen to Eddie and mouths an artificially scandalized _‘what the fuck_’ while Eddie just levels him with a decidedly unimpressed look. Richie relents. “Well – he’s…”

“Fine,” Eddie answers for him. “For – for now, anyway.”

The second pause is much longer than the last one. It’s hard to tell who breaks it first, Ben or Mike, but then they’re both exclaiming Eddie’s name, thrilled and relieved and very possibly crying. They’re loud enough about it that Richie has to jerk the phone away from his ear _again _or risk being deafened. Eddie obviously hears their excited shouts – and Bill’s surprised, happy laughter – even without the benefit of speakerphone; his mouth falls open in surprise and he reaches up to swipe the phone out of Richie’s hands even before Richie’s managed to successfully turn the speaker function on.

Eddie does it for him with shaking hands, propped slightly more upright on Richie’s chest with the sharp bones of his elbows digging into him. It’s twice as uncomfortable as it had been with just Eddie’s chin threatening to poke a hole in him, and Richie continues to do nothing to get him to move, because this new position puts them more or less at eye level with each other and Eddie’s looking at him with such fervent, desperate, _delicate _hope that it’s all Richie can do to resist interrupting Eddie’s next words with a kiss.

“You can hear me?” Eddie asks, his voice going soft like he’s afraid to disrupt the balance they’ve somehow managed to strike.

“Crystal clear!”

“Oh my god, it’s really him”—

“Eddie, are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” Eddie says, and Richie manages to shift the both of them so they’re sitting more upright than not – so he can hold Eddie with the one hand while the other wipes away a stray tear before it can run down into the fresh bandage on Eddie’s cheek.

“He was hurting,” Richie tells them, looking to Eddie for some sign that it’s okay to keep going. Eddie responds by shifting the phone to just one hand so that he can reach up to lace his fingers in Richie’s hair. Richie lets his eyes fall shut, but he keeps his ears wide open as Eddie tells them what Richie already knows, the where-and-what-it-felt-like, albeit with enough additional detail to make Richie wince in sympathy.

“Fuck, Eddie”—Bill begins.

“Eddie, that sounds awful,” Beverly says, horrified.

“How did you get it to stop?” Ben asks. “I mean – do you think it’ll come back?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie mumbles distractedly. Richie opens his eyes to see Eddie giving him a searching look of his own. It takes Richie a moment to realize that he’s trying to let Richie decide how to answer the first question, and another for Richie to swallow back the immediate nervous lurch of his heart trying to alert him to _danger, danger, danger_.

He focuses on Eddie’s hand combing through his hair, instead, and says, “Therapeutic cuddling.” He says it like he’s half-daring them to make any smart comments about it, but of course they don’t; he hadn’t expected them to, really, but the self-conscious fear of it is always looking for ways to seep into him at the slightest provocation.

“Hence the radio silence?” Ben wonders, entirely innocently. Richie feels his face heat up, anyway.

“Like I said,” he begins, but then Eddie gives his hair a gentle tug and he pauses mid-sentence to mouth _‘what?’_

“You _did _interrupt a moment,” Eddie finishes for him. It comes out sounding more gloating than irritable _or _apologetic; even Eddie looks a little surprised at himself as soon as he’s said it – even lets his hand go still in Richie’s hair for a millisecond, enough to give it away – but then he gets this determined look on his face, meets Richie’s wide-eyed gaze with his own, and unflinchingly adds, “You were right, Mike – underneath all the dick jokes, this asshole might actually be the suavest one of us.”

“Richie? No way,” Ben laughs.

“Yes way!” Richie retorts in spite of himself, just as Beverly also disagrees with a light, “I can see it!”

“See? That’s two votes in my favor,” Richie says, letting himself get pulled into the comfortingly familiar flow of their friends’ banter. Eddie watches him with a quietly amused smile on his face, and it makes Richie feel so giddy that for the second time tonight, he forgets to be afraid of having an audience. “Actually, three, right Mike?”

“I’m not casting an official vote until we’ve settled the last contest.”

“Half of you haven’t even tried that yet,” Eddie points out, shifting slightly against Richie. “And now you’ve got your work cut out for you because I’ve got breathing _and _cuddling covered on my own, and Richie’s got longwinded descriptions down to an art”—

“Breathing?” Bill wonders.

“Oh shit, yeah – I forgot to mention that, huh?” Eddie winds up moving again so he can lie back against Richie, who sighs in relief the second his elbows are no longer digging into his chest. Eddie shoots him a knowing look and mouths an apology, to which Richie responds with a half-shrug and a smile. _Don’t worry about it._ He _does _miss Eddie’s hand in his hair the second it’s gone, though.

“Couldn’t you already…?”

“Well, yeah,” Eddie tells Bill. “And I didn’t have to think about it or anything, but I could think about _stopping_ and it didn’t – it didn’t make any difference.”

They all wait patiently for Eddie when he abruptly stops talking to collect himself; Richie squishes Eddie against him and traces several more hearts into the tense muscles of his back. He knows Eddie’s worrying about what they’ll think of that, of him, and he also knows that he’d never let any of them get away with making Eddie feel like any less of a human being than the rest of them. As if they would, he reminds himself.

When Eddie finally works up the nerve to keep talking, he’s a lot quieter, like the novelty of being heard has worn off just enough that he can almost prefer not to be. “Guess my body just got tired of the whole not-needing-to-breathe-thing, because that was just too _convenient._”

He specifically doesn’t mention what a shaky start _that _change had, so Richie opts to avoid bringing it up, too.

“Wow,” Mike says at last. “So things are definitely getting better, huh? Or – different, anyway.”

Eddie nods and doesn’t say anything else, so Richie translates for him. “Yep.”

Ben clears his throat and awkwardly says, “Uh, so I was thinking about how you described the – the pain you were feeling, and I don’t know if this makes sense, but”—

“We’re open to any theories you have,” Richie interrupts. Eddie elbows him for his trouble, so naturally Richie pokes him in retaliation.

He thinks Ben probably hears them trying to muffle their laughter in the aftermath of several more poorly-placed jabs, because he sounds both emboldened and vaguely amused when he continues, “Well, obviously I’m not a doctor, but it kind of sounds like phantom limb pain.”

Richie can tell by the immediate change in Eddie’s expression that he doesn’t like _that _at all.

“Ben,” he warns softly. Eddie’s breathing is picking up again. He’s gone tense and still against Richie, and he doesn’t look up when Richie brushes at a bit of hair that’s falling into his face.

“S-so that wouldn’t be a good sign for me,” Eddie says, going for humorous and managing to sound completely terrified. “Fuck.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Ben rushes to explain. “It got better when you and Richie were able to touch and he could see you, right?”

“And it _started _when you were stuck in-between,” Mike realizes.

“_So?_” Eddie snaps. “The funny thing about having phantom pain in your entire body is that it – it kind of implies you – I don’t have a fucking body.”

Richie picks up one of his hands and gives it a gentle squeeze. “Then explain this, Eds.”

Eddie gives him a helpless, pleading, _exhausted _look and doesn’t say anything, but he can feel him shaking from the tips of his fingers on down.

“Guys, if there’s a point here, can you maybe fucking get to it?” Richie says.

“If you didn’t have a body, why would you need to breathe?” Mike asks pointedly.

That brings both of them up short, so Ben rushes to keep the ball rolling.

“Maybe it’s just proof that he has – that, and a brain, and his brain’s having a hard time reconciling the state he’s in most of the time.”

Eddie doesn’t sound convinced. “Why now, then?”

“Maybe it’s just been too long,” Beverly offers. “Maybe you’re getting better, but it’s kind of a bumpy process.”

“Getting better after being literally dead,” Eddie says flatly. “That’s likely.”

“It could be like supernatural life support,” Richie chimes in. He doesn’t miss the way Eddie’s other hand drifts self-consciously to his chest, right over his heart. It requires some awkward maneuvering, but Richie manages to squish his hand over Eddie’s between them, the same way Eddie did two days ago at his kitchen table. A silent show of support. Eddie doesn’t smile, but he doesn’t pull away, either.

“It could be,” Mike is saying. “I mean – ghosts are like – a part of a person that got frozen. They’re – they’re stuck. But it’s not exactly like that with Eddie, because – I mean, you’ve changed since this all started, haven’t you? And not just physically, although that’s important, too.”

“I was still gay before,” Eddie sighs. Richie gives him an impressed look; he makes it sound so easy.

“But would you have said so before Derry?” Bill prompts. “…You don’t have to answer that.”

“…I don’t think it would’ve occurred to me,” Eddie says reluctantly. “That’s – that’s kind of a lot to get into. I don’t see how” – he shrugs, and sighs, and Richie gives him a look that’s meant to ask, _Should I make them stop?_

Eddie just shakes his head. “So I only started working on some major issues _after _I died,” he grumbles. “And I can feel a few things I couldn’t and I can only hold my breath for, like, a minute or two. I probably _still _couldn’t pass out if I went too long, and” – his hand twitches over his chest – “and I don’t have – my heart isn’t beating. So how does any of that fit into this theory?”

“I don’t know,” Mike says, a little demoralized.

“Maybe we’ll see,” Bill suggests.

“Yeah, you can’t deny it _could_ be a good thing, Eds,” Richie points out. “Except for being in pain. Obviously. But it’s only been two days since we last got to talk like this, and this time _everyone _can hear you.”

Eddie does smile a little at that. “You guys have no idea how nice that is.”

“Which reminds me,” Beverly says. “Eddie, you better be ready for a group hug next time. Richie can’t monopolize you forever.”

“I can and I will,” Richie vows.

Eddie rolls his eyes and totally fails at tamping down the wider smile that spreads across his face. “Richie gets first dibs,” he agrees. “But I think I can make an exception for you guys.”

It may be telling that none of them try to make plans for the next morning; they all know there’s no guarantee Eddie will still be all there that many hours down the line, and no one wants to be the one who puts pressure on him to do something he still can’t control. Beverly does make him promise to drop _something _as a signal to them if the pain comes back – a few empty papers if he can’t write, or a spare pen – and he agrees readily.

“Sorry about the scare,” he says. “I’ll try to keep the crises to normal times of day from now on.”

“If you’re making promises now, how about just no more crises?” Richie suggests. They both know he doesn’t have control over that, either, but a guy can _hope. _Gradual ghost recovery or not, Richie doesn’t want Eddie suffering like that again, ever, and especially not someplace Richie can’t reach him to help.

Eddie probably picks up on that – like he picks up on so many things, maybe even more than Richie realizes – because as soon as they’ve hung up their end of the group call, he’s got his hands on either side of Richie’s face, and he’s pressing a tentative, achingly sweet kiss to his lips and Richie feels his heart start to beat fast enough for the both of them. Eddie’s touch may not be warm, but it goes from gentle to fervently passionate and the longer they stay like that, fingers tangling in hair and pulling at clothes and short gasps of air stolen from the shared space between them, the warmer Eddie feels against him, the more Richie feels like he can hear Eddie reassuring him _I’m here, I’m here, I’m here –_

_I’m here and you’re here and we’re okay, right now, like this –_

And it’s only when Eddie has to pull away for a little longer to catch his breath that Richie notices that the quiet murmur of the TV must have cut out at some point. Eddie’s already starting to eye Richie’s neck with clear intent and a pending question – _can I, is this okay too – _and Richie thinks, _Sorry, Bob, but this is a private thing, just Eds and I, _and makes a clumsy grab for the remote behind him.

Fortunately for the mood he’s really trying _not _to ruin, his fingers connect with the gummy rubber surface of the buttons and the matte plastic between them on his first blind pass over the end table.

The odd thing, the thing that makes Richie turn to actually look at it in mildly frustrated confusion, is the fact that it doesn’t come away in his hand when he tries to grab it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ends one chapter on a cliffhanger only to follow it with an entire chapter of cuddling and then, of course, another completely different cliffhanger] parkour
> 
> There really is an episode of Bob Ross with a lot of squirrels in it and I know this because I did “research” for this chapter, which of course means that I opened Netflix and pulled up the first episode. And you know what! It is nice!


	22. Chapter 22

When Richie eventually tugs one hand free of Eddie’s hair, stops using his thumb to rub slow, warm trails into the un-bandaged skin of his cheek and reaches for something just out of sight behind them, Eddie is too breathless and lightheaded and fully wrapped up in Richie to pay it any mind. He is, if anything, annoyed at having lost any part of Richie’s full attention, so to rectify that he leans in to press a cautious, feather-light kiss to Richie’s throat an inch or two beneath his jaw. He lingers there and waits for Richie to give him some indication that it’s okay to proceed.

Eddie doesn’t know what to expect from Richie in this uncharted territory between them, but it’s definitely – or mostly – not for Richie to suddenly and wordlessly move so that his throat is no longer within such easy reach.

Eddie immediately withdraws too, an apology already pushing through the euphoric fog in his head on down to his lips – still tingling with warmth he’s borrowed from Richie. He moves to sit up and doesn’t have time to worry about schooling his expression into something entirely unperturbed before he takes in Richie’s frown and his hand closed around the TV remote on the table and he _knows_ that look, that total bewilderment.

“Richie.”

“Hmm?” Richie hums, and finally turns to look at him. He’s too quick to draw his hand back to Eddie’s side, and he holds it there with a firmness that belies the practiced innocence of his tone.

Eddie isn’t having it.

“Humor me,” he says for the second time that night, and nods at the remote. Richie doesn’t even look at it, but he does look Eddie in the eyes as he bites at his lower lip. Eddie doesn’t know if his expression is actually hard to read, or if he’s just too worked up already to read it.

“Eds”—

“Please,” Eddie insists. He can feel something in him starting to unspool. It’s like the floor opening up beneath him, like drowning. He opens his mouth to say something else and nothing comes out but a small, terrified whimper.

“Okay,” Richie says immediately. “Okay, but”—and he stops, and he gives Eddie a long look, pained and _scared _and Eddie feels his fists tighten around the fabric of Richie’s shirt as Richie reaches back to the table again, eyes still locked with Eddie’s, and fumbles blindly until his hand brushes the edge of the remote.

It might as well be attached to the table. Eddie can _see_ Richie’s muscles straining to lift it, but he still reaches over, clasps his hand around Richie’s and wills the stupid thing to come off the table – wills Richie’s hand to press down a button, at least, to turn the TV off or resume the streaming like he’d probably been trying to do._ Anything_, he’d take_ anything._

“That’s a trip,” Richie says mildly when it becomes clear he’s given up. He’s probably still in shock, Eddie decides. He’s probably faking calm for Eddie’s sake. His eyes are wide, but his breathing is even, and Eddie doesn’t let go of his hand so much as he just shifts his grip down to the pulse point at Richie’s wrist.

He can’t find what he’s looking for there, so his hands fly with increasing desperation to the curve of Richie’s neck – right where he’d kissed him, how could he not have _noticed _– and then on to the familiar spot on his chest, and he stops there and Richie just watches him quietly, patiently, steadily, and he can’t find it, and he’d know the feeling of Richie’s heartbeat, wouldn’t he, after all the nights he’s spent clinging to that steady rhythm like a safety blanket –

–“no no no no, not to _you_, Richie, _not_ you”—

Richie’s hand comes up to rest over Eddie’s, over his still heart, and Richie’s brow is furrowed now and Eddie thinks, _that’s it, he’ll finally see me for what I’ve been all along, _and it’s too late, too late –

“Eddie,” Richie says, and his voice has a tremor to it that wasn’t there before. “You with me? Are you”—

“If you ask me if _I’m _okay I’ll – I”—but he can’t think of anything to threaten that could even _begin _to compare to what he’s already done. He can’t even bear to look at Richie, at the impossible love in his eyes and the worried crease of his brow.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Richie decides. He raises his other hand to Eddie’s face and wipes away tears Eddie didn’t know he was crying, and Eddie doesn’t bat it away because he’s a coward.

“Breathe, Eds.”

“I ca – I can’t, I can’t, I can’t – d-do this to you,” he sobs, and it’s only then that he realizes he still hasn’t moved his hand, that the force with which he’s holding it against Richie’s chest has become bruising, and when Eddie forces himself to look back down at him Richie is wincing a little but still makes no move to throw him off.

“I’m sorry,” he says instead, and Eddie goes rigid over him.

“No you fucking”—

“Yeah, I should’ve been more careful,” Richie says, mile-a-minute fast, “I knew you were worried about this happening and I didn’t take it seriously enough and I’m sorry for freaking you out, _but” – _and he moves his hand from Eddie’s tear-streaked cheek to his lips, and Eddie tastes salt and shuts up – “if this was all the time I was gonna get with you this time, I don’t mind a little extra.”

“You – you don’t _mind_,” Eddie snaps at him, finally shaking his head free of Richie’s hand, which drifts back down to his chest, “that I just fucking _killed you_.”

Richie wavers. His other hand twitches against Eddie’s, over his heart, and his frown deepens just slightly. He finally looks – not scared, but unsettled, and he says, “It does feel really weird.”

“I know,” Eddie cries. “You think I don’t know?”

“Mm-hm,” Richie breathes. “It’s just different to actually feel it – and _don’t _try to apologize, we were both careless. It isn’t the end of the fucking world yet.”

“_Careless_. ‘Oops, wasn’t paying attention and accidentally fucking turned my boyfriend into a zombie’”—

“Ghost,” Richie corrects with a little smile.

“Oh, that’s just fine then!” Eddie growls, throwing his hands up.

“It could be! Remember what Mike said?”

“I’m having trouble remembering _anything_ right now, Richie”—

“About being frozen,” Richie interrupts with a roll of his eyes. “I mean, the only thing that’s changed is my – uh, heart. Maybe if I can go back, it’ll just” – and he balls his hand into a fist to thump lightly at his chest – “y’know?”

Eddie tries very hard not to look as scared as he feels. “What if it doesn’t?”

Richie thinks about that for a moment. “Guess I’ll have to get used to it, then. At least I’d have you, right?”

“Do you really want”—

“Yes,” Richie says. “A million fucking times yes.”

“But I”—

“Give kisses that are to die for,” Richie tells him, steadfast and now honest-to-god teasing. The smile returns to his face, shy and hopeful. “Come on, that was funny, wasn’t it? Throw me a bone here.”

Eddie doesn’t know if he wants to kiss him or strangle him. “Aren’t you scared at all?”

Richie’s smile falters but doesn’t quite vanish. He fidgets a little and then not-so-discreetly lets his hand flatten back against his chest, just beside Eddie’s. Eddie watches him, guilty and worried and desperate for him to feel safe, and says, “You can freak out about it, Rich. I did. I _still_ do.”

Richie freezes and gives Eddie another searching look, so Eddie braces his hands on either side of Richie and carefully leans in again to press their foreheads together. Richie’s skin is warm against Eddie’s, and when his eyes slip shut it causes a few tears to escape down his cheeks.

“I just hate that you’ve been feeling like this for so long alone, Eds. Like I said, it’s – it feels _weird_. It’s unnerving. How do you manage to always be so _you?_”

“I’m not alone.”

“Still…”

“As if you aren’t also obnoxiously _you _right now,” Eddie tells him, nuzzling his nose against Richie’s. “Besides, you’re the one who keeps telling me how brave I am. Maybe I just took that to heart.”

Richie’s eyes open, and he smiles like he’s about to cry. “Bravest man I know,” he says quietly. “But you shouldn’t have to be.”

“Better me than you,” Eddie says, and he can feel the writhing, gnawing _worry _spike somewhere under all the bandages, distracting enough that he completely misses the moment Richie’s eyes well up with fresh tears.

“Fuck, Eddie, no it _isn’t_,” Richie says soppily. “This fucking _sucks _and it only happened to you at all because I”—

Eddie kisses him in a wet, messy rush and then growls a warning so close to Richie’s mouth that it’s really just a continuation of the kiss. “Don’t finish that sentence. Don’t fucking do it.”

Richie blinks at him, his mouth hanging partway open and his eyes still dewy and red-rimmed, and Eddie has to take a moment to recover some of his own composure because _fuck,_ he should have known about _this _sooner, and that’s two massive fucking mistakes on his conscience all in one night.

When he trusts himself enough to speak, he does _not _tell Richie how frustrated he is, although he’d bet good money Richie can see it all over his face. He just says, “Move,” and then proceeds to clumsily drag them both onto their sides so they’re facing each other and Eddie’s back is flush with the cushions behind him. Richie shifts a little to get comfortable – and to avoid tumbling right off the edge of the couch – but otherwise lets himself be manhandled with only a few quiet complaints about Eddie accidentally elbowing him or the couch not being deep enough for two grown men to share it, as if they haven’t been breathing each other’s air all night as it is.

The whole thing, as vaguely subdued as it is, still manages to remind Eddie of a certain hammock in a certain childhood clubhouse – and the Trashmouth who used to give him so much grief over it.

“You’re the one who bought this stupid thing. Get a better couch next time, dipshit.”

“Maybe I will, _and _it’ll have the ugliest pattern I can find.” Eddie can almost _hear_ the heavily implied _“That’ll show you!” _

_Then it would just look like the shit you wear on a regular basis, _Eddie almost retorts, but he doesn’t – which is probably good given that he’s still wearing a bright-red, floral-print Hawaiian shirt, himself – and despite the levity he really wants to get lost in again, he knows Richie’s caught the abrupt shift back to solemnity because he looks ready to bolt even before Eddie’s even opened his mouth.

“How long have you been sitting on this?”

“The couch?” Richie tries, but they both see it for the weak attempt at dodging the issue that it is. Eddie doesn’t even have to say anything. Richie just sighs and says, “You were protecting me.”

“That doesn’t make this your fault.”

“It doesn’t make it… _not _my fault…”

Eddie just raises a disbelieving eyebrow at him. _Seriously, asshole?_

“Look, what difference does it make?” Richie huffs. “We’re gonna get you back. _I’m _gonna get you back, and _obviously _it won’t be because I feel guilty. I want you to get to live the rest of your life. I wanted that before I woke up in bed with you and I’d still want it just as much if you ever changed your mind about us because I’m not a fucking _asshole. _It’s not like I’m out here beating myself up for it. Fucking self-flagellating with a wet towel in the shower”—

Eddie shoves at him with enough inadvertent force that Richie has to cling to Eddie to keep from falling backward. He very nearly pulls them both onto the floor in the process. It really is just like old times.

“Richie, what the _fuck_, I didn’t need that mental image, jerk”—

“Swear this couch is more comfortable when the cushions have a little give,” Richie says with a shit-eating grin that completely ruins his attempt to look innocent. He doesn’t disentangle himself from Eddie, and Eddie doesn’t shove him again.

“That _would _be the deal-breaker for you,” he retorts instead. “‘Ugh, my bed is too firm and I can’t twist the sheets into a fucking hangman’s noose every time I sleep in it, this ghost thing isn’t fun anymore.’”

Richie looks so delighted by Eddie’s half-assed impersonation of him that he doesn’t even bother critiquing it _or _making any stupid comebacks, so Eddie takes the underhanded route and promptly continues in his own voice, “Look, Richie, I made a choice. Obviously I didn’t know what the consequences would be, but I’d do it again in an instant.” He smiles in spite of himself and adds, “Except I’d still try to dodge it this time.”

“Duh,” Richie laughs, and a little bit of the tension in Eddie relaxes. “You wouldn’t have to, though. I’d pull you out of the way.”

“May the best reflexes win.”

Richie’s smile softens. “Thanks, Eds.”

“I know just hearing me say that might not be enough to get through your thick skull.”

“It is. Well, kind of. Mostly. Just – un-die the rest of the way so we don’t even have to have this talk again, how about that?”

“Love to,” Eddie sighs. “But you first.”

Richie stalls halfway through wriggling impossibly closer to Eddie. “Hey, speaking of which – aren’t we forgetting something?”

Eddie just gives him a blank look until Richie digs his phone back out of his pocket and effortlessly lights up the lock screen with the press of a button, at which point Eddie shoots upright with enough speed and force that Richie barely avoids having to learn the hard way whether it’s possible for a ghost to wind up with a broken nose.

“Fuck, we’re such _idiots_.”

“_I _was distracted,” Richie says defensively. He uses Eddie as a handhold to haul himself upright so that he can sit cross-legged with his shoulder pressed up against Eddie’s, and then he opens up the Losers’ Club group chat to the inevitable background of Eddie complaining at him.

The first thing Richie does then is type out a line of approximately a dozen ghosts with mismatched eyes and lolling tongues. The second thing he does is ignore Eddie telling him to_ type something actually useful like, I don’t know, a fucking request for help, maybe a little fyi since you assholes didn’t make any plans for you to conspicuously not show up to tomorrow – _and hit send.

Despite the utterly useless content of the message, they both wait with bated breath for it to go through… or at the very least for a red error message to pop up informing them that it couldn’t. They wait like that for what seems like a long time until Eddie finally realizes something else.

The clock up at the top of the screen isn’t advancing. It’s frozen at 3:27, just like Eddie’s watch was up until he tossed it in the trash along with the rest of his unsalvageably grimy clothes.

His wedding band, too. He wonders if Richie’s noticed that.

Richie sighs. “Think we might be SOL on this front.”

Maybe Eddie’d been pinning a little too much hope on the ‘too easy to be true’ option, because right on the heels of crushing disappointment comes the tightening of his chest; his next breaths come out wheezing and interspersed with coughs.

Richie says his name several times in increasing alarm before he gives up on getting an answer. Instead, he takes Eddie’s hand and places it on his chest, and he holds it there firmly even when Eddie immediately tries to recoil.

“Don’t focus on my heart, man, focus on my breathing. Come on.”

It takes him a few more forced half-lungfuls of air, but Eddie finally manages to nod. Focusing on Richie is easier than it has any right to be, even if it does take him several minutes to match him inhale for inhale and so on.

“Better?” Richie asks eventually. He lets Eddie have his hand back when he gets another nod in response.

“What’re we gonna do,” Eddie mourns. “You can’t stay like this, Richie.”

“It might not be up to us,” Richie says lightly. “But everyone’ll come looking eventually.”

“What if it’s too late? What if we’re both just stuck?” Oh _god – _“What if _I _get better and you don’t?!”

Richie frowns. “You think that’s possible?”

“I don’t _know,_” Eddie moans into his hands.

“Eds. Eddie. Eddie Spaghetti. It’s okay. We’ll take it as it comes.”

“I know. I know, I just – wait, Rich” – and Eddie scoots a little farther down the couch, away from Richie – “remember the notes! Maybe if you just keep a safe distance for a few minutes, that’ll fix it!”

Richie scratches at the back of his head and screws his face up in a way that broadcasts his distaste for that idea in no uncertain terms. “But if that works you’ll go back on your ‘no touching allowed’ bullshit, right?”

“Obviously it isn’t bullshit, smartass, and – and I won’t, as long as you’re completely one-hundred-percent _entirely_ fine and we’re just – less careless.”

That seems to cheer Richie up. His face relaxes into _almost_ a smile, and he says, “You haven’t really done a stellar job of following that rule, anyway.”

“Don’t remind me,” Eddie mutters. “I’m not gonna be able to relax until I’ve listened to your pulse for _hours_ – no, actually, not until you’ve gone to a doctor and _they’ve _monitored your pulse for hours. You’d better go to a fucking urgent care as soon as you can, okay?”

Richie gives him a playful salute, followed by a tremendous yawn that seems to catch even him off guard.

“Think I could have a few more minutes first?” he asks a little sheepishly. “I promise I’ll take the blame if a little pre-nap cuddling is what does me in.”

“It’s probably past four at this point, Rich. It better be a little more than a nap.” Eddie wants to tack on something more about the entire question of blame between them – because Eddie wants there to be approximately _none_ of it – but Richie really _is_ looking sleepier by the second, and Eddie thinks, _Why not? _They have to have earned at least one easy goodbye by now.

“I’ll be okay,” Richie says, evidently still assuming that he needs to argue his point, so of course Eddie answers him with a quick kiss to Richie’s cheek and then drags him up off the couch by his hand. If anything, it’s reassuring that his own energy levels are holding just as unnaturally steady as ever; Richie’s clearly aren’t, and any difference that ties Richie closer to life _has _to be a good sign.

“Come on, then, I’m not gonna listen to you whining about your neck hurting because you fell asleep on the couch.”

Richie gives him a smile that’s one part relieved, one part sleepy, and lets himself be pulled along. “Gotta brush my teeth, too.”

Eddie snorts. “How’re you gonna do that, Rich? Levitate the toothbrush?”

“Oh. Right. Forgot.”

“‘S okay. It’s – it’s good not to get too comfortable with it.” He can almost ignore the sharp pang of unease he always gets when he lets his thoughts stray too far in that direction.

“Ohh,” Richie says, softer still and a little sad as Eddie helps him get situated in the midst of an unmade bed. “That’s why you wanted me – wanted us to describe all the little things to you.”

“…Yeah,” Eddie mumbles. “I just… need to remember, sometimes.”

“I’ll keep it up,” Richie promises, in that earnest way he does that makes Eddie want to laugh and cry at the same damn time. “Here’s one. Y’know those pictures of cats sleeping? Where they’re all” – he twirls his finger in a little circle, a silhouette in the faint light filtering into the room from down the hall – “curled up, looks like they don’t have a care in the world?”

Eddie settles in against Richie’s side and wonders absently if he’s about to be compared to a cat, after all. “Mm-hmm?”

“That’s how it feels.”

“How what feels?” Eddie asks, letting his curiosity get the better of him.

Richie laughs like a kid at a sleepover and says, “Two things. Falling asleep, because obviously. It’s comfy like that. Everything gets hazy.”

Eddie chuckles. It’s not a bad comparison, really. “And what’s the second thing?”

“Holding you,” Richie says. “Being close to you.”

Eddie feels tears well in his eyes, and for a moment he has to hold his breath or risk letting this miniature flood of emotions rush out of him too loud and too close to the drowsy man beside him. Richie rolls over so that he’s lying on his side with his back to Eddie, and Eddie shifts forward to curl around him. When he finally exhales, it’s against the back of Richie’s neck, which gets a gentle shiver out of him.

“Too much?” Richie checks, a little breathlessly.

Eddie drapes an arm across Richie’s waist. Presses the palm of his open hand to Richie’s chest and his nose to the back of his neck.

“Sap,” he says. “Go to sleep.”

Richie snorts softly. “‘Night, Eds.”

“Good very early morning to you, too,” Eddie murmurs. He presses one last kiss to the back of Richie’s neck – _for good luck_, he thinks, _for all the life in you_ – and as he feels the slow rise and fall of Richie’s chest gradually get slower and deeper, he mulls over warm patches of sunlight, soft fur and all the trust it takes to curl up, unguarded and unconscious, beside another person.

-*-

When Richie wakes up, it’s with the immediate, bleary-eyed knowledge that whatever woke him up definitely couldn’t have been the completion of a good night’s eight-hour rest. He gradually registers a lot of things – _cold_, first, and then _why the fuck am I wearing jeans in bed, _and finally – “Eds?”

The resounding silence of his bedroom would be answer enough even without the accompanying thunder of his heart in his chest, but he still fumbles for the switch on the lamp beside his bed out of some desperate hope that he’ll see Eddie materialize out of the darkness.

He finds his glasses sitting on top of a folded piece of paper, blurry but more or less recognizable in the sudden flood of too-bright light that spills across the surface of the bedside table. Richie doesn’t remember taking them off himself, and that brings a smile to his face even before he starts in on the note.

_‘Didn’t want these getting broken. I was going to hold onto them for you, but then you started tangling the sheets up again and I couldn’t straighten them out (sorry), so here. _

_ I felt it when your heart started. I never really let go, so it was hard to miss._

_Did it hurt? It didn’t seem like it hurt, but don’t forget to keep an eye on everything.’_

The writing keeps drifting just below the lines on the paper, like Eddie had had a hard time seeing them in the dark but chose not to leave the room long enough to write by the light they’d left on in the other room.

Richie almost misses the _‘p.s.’ _on the other side of the paper – probably would have, as sleepy as he is, if it weren’t for the way the lines of one of Eddie’s little hand-drawn hearts stand out against the pads of his fingers.

_‘In case you’re wondering, I’ll be right here with you. Whenever you actually read this, I’m right there.’ _Richie brings a hand up to his chest, hoping to catch even the barest hint of something there, but all he feels is the badly wrinkled T-shirt he’s been wearing all day.

_‘I was touching you and it still fixed itself. Can you believe that?’_

“Toldja,” Richie mumbles, although he’s not actually sure at the moment if he did or not. He rubs the back of his hand across his eyes and takes a deep breath in an effort to wake himself up enough to actually stand.

“I’m gonna go change,” he says at last, and frowns in mild disgust at the lingering aftertaste of alcohol and morning breath. “And brush my teeth.”

He’s still sluggish enough that it takes him a stupidly long time to come back to bed. He puts very little effort into straightening out the covers before he climbs under them, but he still takes the time to leave a spot for Eddie.

He takes a little extra to read the fresh note Eddie’s left out for him.

_‘Nice bedhead,’ _it says. Richie definitely _doesn’t _bring a hand up to self-consciously flatten it before he remembers he has a probably very smug audience of one.

_‘Sweet dreams, Rich.’_

“Sweeter with you in ‘em,” Richie tells him, and flicks off the lamp.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be minor spoilers for the 1990 movie _Ghost_ and the first half-hour of _Sleepless in Seattle_ in this chapter! ;3

Richie wakes up with a throbbing headache and too-bright sunlight slanting directly into his eyes through his bedroom window. He realizes with a scratchy groan that he never _did _get around to closing the blinds last night, so now of course that whole wall is just a blurry, intensely bright wall of gold that makes him screw his eyes shut and fumble around for his glasses.

The bedside table is practically papered with Eddie’s handwritten notes. Richie knocks a few off before he manages to locate his glasses; it’s as good a reason as any to get out of bed, so he makes quick work of gathering them all up and then glances at his phone. It’s nearly dead, which is only surprising because by all rights, it definitely _should _be dead – given the fucking _time –_

“Fuck.”

It’s already past three in the afternoon. He can’t even _remember _the last time he slept this late – or this long. He wouldn’t’ve even thought he _could,_ like, _physically, _and yet it had been so completely restful that he can’t remember any disturbances after the first. Well – that probably explains the unusually thick stack of ghost mail, _and_ the long backlog of unread messages he finds in the Losers’ group chat.

Richie skims them for just a moment before hurriedly typing, _‘Slept in, sorry. We’re ok, just gimme a sec’_

He’ll probably feel worse about worrying them all _again_ just as soon as he’s awake enough to think about that; for the time being, though, he goes back to Eddie’s notes and runs through them a few times. They’re all out of order, of course, so he gets a pretty all-over-the-place, confusing picture of Eddie’s mounting concern.

_‘Don’t forget to drink some water when you get up.’_

_‘Seriously, are you okay? Everything seems normal but you didn’t even sleep like this when you’ – _and that bit, mercifully, is crossed out, replaced with a simple, _‘back in Seattle.’_

_‘We forgot to grab more paper for me to use. I’ll start being more careful about saving it soon but I already fucking miss talking to you.’_

_‘Sleep in a little why don’t you?’_

_‘You seemed like you were having a nightmare. Scared the shit out of me when your heart rate picked up but I think maybe I helped. Could you hear me?’_

“Kind of,” Richie murmurs, holding that one out so Eddie can see what he’s responding to. “That’s pretty neat, right? If I could figure out how to do, uhm, lucid dreaming – we could talk that way.”

It’s such a long shot that it’s more of a joke than a real idea, but it sounds nice to Richie, anyway. Give it more than the day or two, max, that he’s willing to wait patiently and he just might try it.

_‘You’re probably fine but this is starting to freak me out a little.’_

_‘You better wake up soon, Richie, I swear to god.’_

Richie droops a little when he gets to that one; it’s the last in the pile. “Sorry, Eds. I didn’t even think to set an alarm.”

He looks around, force of habit, and sees a fresh page lying right beside him.

_‘Don’t even think about teasing me for this, it’s perfectly reasonable to be on high alert after last night. You better be thinking about getting ready for a trip to the doctor right now.’_

Almost as an afterthought, he’s added, _‘And how do you feel?’ _at the bottom of the page.

Richie huffs. “Clearly I wasn’t going to make fun, thank you very much. And I will. I feel fine, though. Little headache, but otherwise” – he shrugs – “I just had a really good, weirdly long night – er, day’s sleep, that’s all.”

He doesn’t give Eddie the chance to waste another page on a reminder about water; he just troops on down the kitchen and takes care of that, first thing. Being within easy reach of food also seems to remind his stomach that it’s been a ridiculously long time since he last ate, so he goes ahead and tucks into some yogurt and granola – not his favorite, but acceptable, and quick enough that he doesn’t think it’ll make Eddie any more impatient for him to get to a doctor than he already is.

“Thanks for worrying about me, Eds,” he says between mouthfuls of food – or in the middle of one, but who’s counting? He swallows again before he asks, “What about you, are you okay? The pain didn’t come back, did it?”

He goes back to doing his best to catch up on the flurry of texts he missed by sleeping through more than half the day, albeit maybe a little bit grudgingly; so sue him – he’d like a quick answer to that particular question.

It looks like his brief text might’ve saved him an unexpected visit from everyone, although it clearly hasn’t done much to actually mollify them in the meantime. Richie’s staring down a few hours’ worth of questions and debate about whether or not they should just barge in on him.

_‘We should get Eddie a new phone so someone on their end will actually respond,’ _Bev is saying now. It’s clearly a direct dig at Richie, who winces when he sees it.

_‘Actually that definitely wouldn’t work anyway,’ _he tells them.

_‘It lives,’ _Mike says. Richie doesn’t need to hear it to _hear _the dry tone.

_‘Ok fair to be mad but I really was just asleep,’ _Richie responds. _‘We do have a lot to tell you guys though.’_

_‘What do you mean it wouldn’t work?’ _Ben asks.

_‘Are you ever going to explain the ghost pictures you sent,’ _Bill asks; the two texts come through almost simultaneously. Richie wonders if Eddie will lay down one of his dwindling sheets of paper just to remind him that he _did _tell him not to send just that and nothing else. Richie had all but forgotten about those stupid emojis, but clearly that didn’t stop it from eventually going through and confusing the shit out of everyone.

_‘Can we talk abt this in person? It would be easier. Plus I have to’ – _he thinks better of raising any more alarms – _‘take care of smth first. Early dinner? 5-ish, that Italian place Bill mentioned last night?’_

_‘Fine, but don’t be late,’ _Bill says. Beverly replies to that with a bunch of arrows pointing up at Bill’s message, a fist emoji, and another emoji that looks like a comic book sound effect bubble. Wham!

_‘She means we’ll break your door down if you are,’ _Ben texts after a moment. Somehow, he manages to make the more explicit threat sound a lot milder; Beverly responds again, this time with a line of hearts.

_‘Promise,’ _Richie types. He barely remembers to hit send before he’s fully distracted by the note he spots beside his hands and his mostly-finished bowl of granola.

_‘Yeah, it did come back, but it’s just a little ache. I can deal. If I’m not worried you definitely don’t need to be.’_

“Uh, no – still worried,” Richie says, furrowing his brow. “Obviously I’ll take your word for it, but _please _let me, or – or _someone_ know the second it gets worse. Do you wanna stay here today? I could ask everyone to come here instead. The doctor won’t take that long, I could be back soon.” Not that he particularly wants to risk leaving Eddie alone with his ghost pains in the meantime.

Richie waits in tense silence for Eddie’s response to that. He doesn’t even polish off the rest of his food, so the granola goes on getting soggy until the next paper appears right in front of it.

_‘Fuck off, I’m coming with you. I want to hear what they say at the clinic if that’s okay. Besides, your apartment without you in it is boring.’_

“‘Course it’s okay.” Richie relaxes enough to finish eating, and he uses that as a sort of shield – forced casualness, maybe – for when he says, “Don’t you mean – I mean, isn’t it kind of” – he sighs, gives up the pretense, and tries again. “It’s more like _our _apartment at this point, isn’t it? Tell me if I’m rushing too much and I’ll throw on the brakes, but – but that’s kinda how I think of it.”

It takes him long enough to clean the bowl and gulp down another glass of water that when he turns around again, his nervous, embarrassed flush feels like it’s finally faded a little, and there’s anther note sitting at his place at the table.

_ ‘It has a nice ring to it.’ _

-*-

“Before anyone says anything, I _did _technically say five-_ish_,” Richie announces loudly the second he’s just _barely _within earshot of the table Bill managed to nab for their group of six, “so technically we’re not late. You guys are just early.”

Eddie’s still riding the elation of Richie’s clean bill of health – and the skeptical look the nurse at the walk-in clinic had given him when he gave her some bullshit story about chest pain and shortness of breath. _Nothing at all to worry about as far as we can tell, _they’d told him, _but of course if the symptoms don’t go away on their own you can come back and we can refer you to a specialist. _

Eddie’s taken enough overblown concerns about minor symptoms to doctors to recognize those looks and unconcerned directions for what they are – a sign that Richie’s health is so perfectly normal that they think it’s a little ridiculous for him to have come in at all.

While everyone else greets Richie with quick hugs and pats on the back and a round of good-natured ribbing over his ten-minute-late arrival – not bad by Richie standards, honestly – Eddie takes in the chair they’ve left pulled out for him and allows himself a quiet, fond smile.

Of course, Eddie’s never _liked _suspecting that medical professionals feel that way about his regular appearances in their offices – maybe because it really does get ridiculous sometimes and he wishes it fucking _didn’t, _and maybe also because it makes him worry that he’s not being taken seriously – but Richie doesn’t seem bothered at all, and Eddie’s already kept his promise to spend hours seeing for himself that nothing’s gone amiss with Richie’s heart, or any other part of him.

So he accepts the non-diagnosis for the good sign he so desperately wants it to be; he already has an excited note about it ready to go as soon as they’re all seated. He hasn’t gone as far as getting his hopes up about being as much a part of the flow of conversation as he wishes he could be, but this is as close as he can get to shouting for everyone to hear.

And he _really_ feels like shouting.

_‘I can touch him! I can be close to Richie and it won’t hurt him!’_

The note finds its way to them before anyone’s had much of an opportunity to wrestle some answers out of Richie; the waitress comes by with another glass of ice water and a curious glance at the chair Eddie’s occupying. Bill reassures her that it’s for a friend who – and he hesitates – may or may not be able to make it tonight. They order food, and Ben’s just asked Eddie directly how he’s doing when Beverly catches sight of Eddie’s note on the table.

“I think we have an answer.”

Eddie would blush if he could. He hadn’t meant it as a direct response to _that _question, but it almost works as one.

Richie _does _blush when he gets his turn to read it. Eddie might have felt bad if it weren’t for the tentative smile that slips onto his face at the same time.

“Yeah – we were, uh… we were touching for a while after the call, okay, and we didn’t notice right away, but when I tried to pick up the remote – for the TV, obviously…” Richie shrugs and offers a slightly sheepish look.

Beverly muffles a gasp. “You didn’t.”

“And that’s why you sent all those ghosts?” Bill asks.

“Yeah, that was stupid, I swear I was gonna say something else but that one wouldn’t send so we just gave up”—

“What was it like?” Mike leans in, eyes bright with curiosity.

Richie grimaces. “Weird. Bad weird. You know when you try to run in a dream and you know you _should _be able to but you just can’t?”

“Huh,” Eddie says. Richie really does have a way with words – _sometimes_, when he isn’t using them to make dick jokes. He can even remember feeling that way when this all started; he still does, albeit a lot less often the more dreadfully accustomed to it he gets. He prods at the fork that would be his if he could use it and thinks, _It is kind of like that._

“And it fixed itself?” Mike asks. “How long did that take?”

Richie’s face turns a little redder, and he glances around like he’s hoping Eddie will have left a note to bail him out. Eddie hasn’t, mostly because he’s pretty sure it’ll be too late by the time any explanation of his becomes visible to the rest of them. He settles for reaching across the gap between their two chairs and setting his hand on Richie’s knee.

“I – Eddie might know, more or less. I was already asleep at that point. He’s, uh, really excited because he never had to – to let go of me?” It’s painfully obvious Richie hadn’t meant for that last bit to sound like a question; Eddie gives his knee a sympathetic squeeze that he doesn’t seem to feel.

“You went back to normal _without _Eddie letting go of you?” Ben asks, clearly amazed. There’s a slow smile spreading across Beverly’s face, while Bill’s already grinning.

Richie shoots both of them a self-conscious glare and mutters, “What?”

“You just look happy,” Beverly says, and it’s gentle enough that Eddie can see the harsh line of Richie’s shoulders relax by degrees the longer they all go without saying anything the least bit hurtful.

Eddie takes the opportunity to write another note and set it beside Richie’s glass of water.

“I am,” Richie says, his voice breaking a little, and he surprises all of them by not following it up with a joke. He just wipes absently at his eyes with the back of his hand and says, “And yeah, turns out it wasn’t like the notes at all.”

“Because you’re alive?” Bill wonders.

Richie shrugs. “I mean, yeah, but my heart stopped when it happened, too.”

He says that like he expects everyone to take it in stride just because he’s fine now, so of course he has the gall to look taken aback when everyone flips out.

“Richie, _Jesus,_ are you _okay?”_

“It _stopped?_”

“It started again, right?”

“Have you been to a doctor?”

“Uh, yeah – to all of those. Eddie made sure I did, that’s why I was late – or, not early.”

“Maybe lead with that next time,” Eddie sighs at him. “Or… don’t just casually drop a bomb in the middle of a conversation.”

“And?” Bill prompts, looking no less alarmed.

“They didn’t find anything wrong,” Richie says. “I’m fine, honestly. You know Eds wouldn’t settle for less than a hundred percent certainty about this.”

Eddie’s maybe a little self-satisfied when _that _seems to relax their friends.

“That’s true,” Beverly says, but she still scans Richie one more time for any sign that he’s not feeling well. Richie just raises an eyebrow at her; when he reaches oh-so-casually for his glass of water, Eddie sees him zero in on the note.

“I’m guessing you didn’t take that well, huh, Eddie?” Mike muses.

“Fuck no,” Eddie says. What kind of lover – what kind of _person _would he be if he had?

“He really fucking didn’t,” Richie says like it’s an afterthought. He’s got the paper in his hands already, water forgotten, and is reading it with a big, dopey smile on his face that makes the air in Eddie’s lungs feel like it’s somehow doubled in volume.

“Oh, what did he say?” Bev asks.

_‘Who’d ever want to let go of you?’_

“You don’t have to show that one if you don’t want to,” Eddie murmurs. He really should’ve thought to add that to the top of the page or something.

But Richie’s already shaking his head. “I think this one’s just for me,” he says apologetically. “I did promise to keep him all to myself, didn’t I?”

Beverly laughs. “You did.”

Richie turns his head in Eddie’s direction and says, slow and quiet, “You’re worth holding on to, too, Eds. More than anything.”

Eddie doesn’t know if the other Losers hear it under the louder weekend buzz of a crowded restaurant; he doesn’t look to find out, as wrapped up as he is in Richie’s open, earnest expression. If they do catch some part of it, they have the tact not to say anything about it even after Richie takes a slow, steadying breath and turns back to their conversation.

“Um,” he says, almost _shyly_, and that does it – Eddie braces one hand on the table between them and steals a quick kiss to Richie’s cheek, because fuck if being entirely undetectable in a crowded restaurant shouldn’t have a little PDA as one of its very few perks. Even Richie doesn’t notice it, but it calms the rush of overwhelming fondness in Eddie enough that he can sit down and focus on the rest of the group’s quiet back-and-forth, at least for a while.

He limits most of his own comments to verbal ones after leaving out a note promising that he’s just trying to save paper. It’s _mostly _true.

It’s just _also_ true that the bone-deep ache that started back up early in the morning still hasn’t gone away. It’s not getting _worse, _just holding steady with only occasional spikes of sharper pain that make Eddie wince. Eddie hadn’t lied to Richie – it’s tolerable, and he can handle it. It scares him, but not so terribly that he can’t hope Richie will be able to chase it away the next time Eddie’s corporeal.

In the meantime, though, Eddie has to face the waiting alone – as alone as he has no choice but to be despite everyone’s best efforts, even Richie’s – which makes him possibly a little overeager for as many distractions as he can get.

As the Losers’ dinner conversation starts to wind down, Eddie leaves a short note with Richie letting him know that he’s going to have a quick walk around the restaurant. He promises to leave a second one as soon as he’s back and asks them to make sure they wait for him, not because he’d get lost – as _if – _but because he really doesn’t want to walk all the way back to their apartment alone.

_‘Our apartment,’_ he writes. With a little heart.

He finds what he’s looking for on a rickety, card-laden rack by the restaurant’s front waiting area. It’s the kind that spins, and it’s backed up against a wall so that Eddie can only see the cards that happen to be facing his way. He sees “Missing You” on a label in front of one of them and turns to get a closer look before he even realizes what he’s doing.

It’s so perfect it almost feels like fate.

Like trying to run in a dream is _right, _though; Eddie would give almost anything to be able to discreetly run the card up to the front register and buy it with no one the wiser – or, fuck, he’d settle for a little shoplifting as a throwback to their misspent youth, but of course he can’t get the damn thing to budge, so he has to settle for the next best thing.

He hadn’t stuck around at the table long enough to see them actually find his little note, but when he comes back, it’s been moved from Richie’s spot to Bill’s, so they’ve clearly gotten the message.

It’s unexpectedly gratifying to see Richie looking just as relaxed as he’d been before; he’s smiling and joking along with everyone just like he had been, and Eddie’s almost sidetracked by the thought that Myra… never would have calmly allowed him to wander off on his own, silent and invisible and incapable of lifting so much as a piece of paper on his own.

“Thanks for not being like that,” Eddie tells him, a little sad, a little sweet, and then he sneaks around the table to where Beverly’s sitting and slips a note onto her lap.

He waits with bated breath for her to notice it. He’s probably just lucky that it happens when she’s not in the middle of a sentence, because she does pause momentarily to scan the giant, all-caps line at the top: _‘KEEP THIS A SECRET.’_

Eddie glances nervously up at Richie, but he’s fully distracted by Mike’s longwinded evaluation of some new book-to-film adaptation that Eddie didn’t manage to catch the name of.

Beverly brushes at the paper – a signal, Eddie thinks. _I see it._

She reads the rest of it slowly, keeping her eyes moving to avoid drawing too much attention, and Eddie pats himself on the back for picking her for this. She’s the best actress among them, always ready to engage in antics of one sort or another, and – like all of them, maybe – not at all likely to poke fun at Eddie for not being able to do this simple thing for himself.

Even Eddie almost believes her when she excuses herself to the bathroom, heads off in that direction and then sneaks back around to the rack by the front of the store. Another stroke of luck – it’s just out of eyeshot of their group’s table.

“Oh, Eddie, he’ll love this,” she laughs when she sees the card.

“I know,” Eddie says with a triumphant grin.

She buys it and slips it into her purse. No one seems suspicious at all – least of all Richie – although Ben does give her a curious look when she comes back to sit down.

-*-

The genuinely hard part is trying to find an opportunity to sneak the card into some place Richie can find it the way he finds everything from Eddie. It’s the closest Eddie can get to giving it to him in person, after all, so it becomes a sort of mission for him and Bev over the next few days – even as the aches and pains gradually start to worsen enough to be a major distraction in their own right.

It finally gets bad enough one afternoon that Eddie asks Richie for help. Not that it would have stopped him, as lousy as he feels, but it’s something of a relief that they don’t have any plans with the rest of the Losers to interrupt; Ben and Bev are taking a day just for the two of them, while Bill and Audra are out giving Mike a little tour of the city. Eddie hopes he’s having an alright time third-wheeling.

Richie’s just finishing up some light cleaning around the apartment when Eddie writes a hurried, messy note for him and slaps it onto the bathroom counter.

He jumps a little when Richie makes a surprised noise beside him; he’d been emptying the trash – _finally, _much to Eddie’s relief – but now he’s straightened up again and is holding something in his hand.

He’s not looking at Eddie or at the piece of paper on the counter, though; he’s looking down at Eddie’s wedding band with a sort of subdued expression.

“Huh. I wondered when you lost this.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “I didn’t lose it, I got rid of it. It was in there for a reason, Rich.”

“Do you really wanna just throw it away?” He looks, inexplicably, guilty at the prospect.

Unfortunately, Eddie has to file that one away for later as he sinks onto the floor beside the counter and closes his eyes against the sharp pain that shoots briefly up his arms, all the way to his chest. “Ow, fuck – I don’t – I literally did already,” he groans. “Just read the fucking note, _please._”

Richie gives Eddie time to respond to his question, so of course he sees the note about as quickly as Eddie could’ve possibly hoped.

Eddie’s been repeating the words over and over in his head like a mantra, waiting for them to stick: _‘Pain’s getting bad again. Think I need a distraction or something.’_

“Fuck,” Richie mutters. “Okay, uh – can you still move? Don’t even know where you are – shit.” He’s glancing all around the bathroom now, missing Eddie entirely on several passes, so Eddie reluctantly drags himself back up to his feet and slumps against Richie’s side.

Standing, leaning, curled up on any surface – none of it seems to make any difference anyway; there’s _no_ comfortable position for him, only things that seem right to do.

Like letting Richie, who doesn’t seem to have noticed any extra weight on him at all, drag him all the way down the hall and over to the couch.

“I’ll make a few passes looking for notes from you,” he promises. “Just to be safe. But if you can – if you’re here, just – _wait _here, okay? Hang in there, Eds.”

“Trying,” Eddie sighs, already dragging himself down onto the couch. He can feel a headache building behind his eyes, and he hates it. Of all the things to suddenly be able to feel with overwhelming clarity, why does pain have to be one of them?

While Richie rushes through bagging up the rest of the trash and leaving it to wait by the door, Eddie pens another line for Richie and leaves it on the end table.

_‘On the couch. Can you just sit with me a while?’_

“Yeah, buddy, of course, as long as you want,” Richie says when he sees it. He waits an extra long time for Eddie to free up the cushion he gestures at, then gingerly takes a seat. His eyes are wide with concern, his brow furrowed and his mouth set in a tight-lipped line. “Can I do anything else, though? Put on a movie, maybe? I – I’m sorry I can’t feel you, but I could try touching where you are, if you tell me.”

_‘A movie would be good, and just listening to you talk. Can I put my head down here?’ _Eddie leaves the note in Richie’s lap, a pointed indication of exactly where he means. It seems like the easiest way to be close to Richie without having to be too well aware of how far from him he really is.

Richie’s cheeks turn a nice shade of pink when he finally picks up the note after a brief but tense wait.

“Yeah. Here.” He gestures at his lap and puts his feet up on the coffee table, like he’s settling in for the long haul. If Eddie felt up to it, he’d probably complain about Richie messing up a freshly-cleaned surface with his feet, but he doesn’t; he just watches as Richie picks up the remote and starts clicking his way through various streaming apps and channels while Eddie gets himself situated.

“Is there anything you wanna watch? Maybe something with an actual plot this time?”

“A rom-com,” Eddie mumbles.

“A – did you say a rom-com?” Richie laughs. “Seriously? You still like those, after all these years?”

“They’ve changed about as much as horror movies, and _you _still like _those,_” Eddie retorts. When he doesn’t get a response, he determinedly fishes around in his pocket and writes exactly that, because no way is Richie getting the last word on stupid-but-good movie genres. While he’s doing that, Richie scrolls past one that looks interesting.

“_Ghost _– that’s pretty fitting,” he comments cheekily.

Eddie’s never seen it. He’s pretty sure it’s not a romantic comedy, but the cover art alone just _screams _romance; he scribbles another line beneath his little retort, a slightly jarring tonal shift: _‘Ghost sounds good to me. You can spend the entire movie making fun of it, I don’t care.’_

Actually, it’ll probably make the movie more fun for both of them, but Eddie doesn’t say that. He trusts Richie will read between the lines.

Richie keeps mentioning other movie titles, searching for ideas on his phone and making jokes with a nervous edge to them; he doesn’t bring his hands anywhere near Eddie, but he also seems to be making a careful effort to keep his legs still for him.

When he sees the note, he cracks a more genuine smile. “You got me there, I guess. _Ghost _it is then.”

Eddie’s _positive _he’d be bellyaching to hell and back about this particular choice under any other circumstances, but it’d be half for the sake of an argument, anyway, and he’s clearly too worried about Eddie to even consider it now.

He’s _not_ too worried to immediately lay into the movie, though. Eddie laughs along with him until they get as far as Patrick Swayze’s inevitable death scene, at which point the room gets eerily quiet and Eddie feels Richie gradually tense up beneath him.

It takes Richie a moment to hesitantly ask, “Do you wanna switch movies, Eds?”

_‘I’m okay,’ _Eddie writes. _‘If you need to, we can. Lucky me that I can’t walk through things if that’s what it’s like, though.’_

Richie snorts when he sees that. “Maybe you should be taking notes. That’s what ghosts are _supposed _to do.”

He sounds genuinely relaxed enough that Eddie decides not to press the issue. At some point, Richie’s hands finally make their tentative way down to his lap, where one settles against the back of Eddie’s head and the other winds up draped awkwardly across Eddie’s bandaged cheek.

It doesn’t magically drive all the pain out of the rest of Eddie’s body. He might just be imagining that it makes his headache easier to deal with, but he’s definitely _not _imagining how warm and gentle and _safe _it feels. It almost makes up for the disappointing emphasis the movie seems to have decided to place on its thriller plotline; even Richie clearly isn’t impressed by it.

“Can you feel that?” Richie asks as their hapless ghost protagonist tries to learn how to move objects with his mind.

It would be a neat trick if it were possible. Eddie has to use his hands to write, _‘Yeah. Thank you. Still hurts, but distraction accomplished.’_

Richie smiles when he reads that, a little sad. “I’m sorry I can’t do more for you. We can watch as many movies as you want if you think it’ll help, though. I can go all night.”

“You’ll have to sleep sometime.”

And on paper – _‘You do plenty, Rich.’_

They don’t exchange any more words directly the rest of the movie, although Richie never stops his running commentary on the bad special effects and dense characters. Eddie pokes fun at Richie for being just as dense – and at _least _as annoying as the ghost of Patrick Swayze, “except you’d do worse than just singing songs about Henry the Eighth for hours on end” – but he doesn’t bother writing it down for Richie to see. It’s a comfortable quiet that settles between them, an acknowledgment of the wall that separates them and the closeness they’ve managed to forge in spite of it.

Eddie privately thinks that for all the joking Richie does, they _both_ enjoy the possession scene, all the way from Molly’s “Can you feel me, Sam?” – Richie laughs, embarrassed and startled by the coincidence – to Sam’s “With all my heart,” and the weird-but-sweet, sexual-but-we-didn’t-wanna-take-it-too-far touching bit that goes on between the two of them.

By the time the movie’s finally over, the only pain that’s actually one-hundred-percent _gone _is his headache; even so, Eddie’s got other things to dwell on despite the way the rest of the hurt lingers through every full-body wince and cringe and emotionally – but never physically – exhausted sigh. Like Richie’s breathing and the warmth he radiates and the bittersweet on-screen romance. The bad guys get their comeuppance, but the good guys have rules they have to follow, too.

“I hated the ending,” Richie says long after the credits have finished rolling and the TV screen’s gone dark again. “I wanted him to get to stick around. It doesn’t seem fair, after all that.”

_‘Me too,’ _Eddie writes. _‘But maybe we’ll get a better ending.’_

“I hope so, Eds,” Richie says, so quiet it’s almost reverent. “I really hope so.”

-*-

Richie lets Eddie pick the next three movies they wind up watching – all romances, actual rom-com romances and not supernatural thriller-slash-romances, and all of them new to Richie. He remembers teasing Eddie over _When Harry Met Sally _when they were teens_, _but he doesn’t really remember hearing much about _Sleepless in Seattle_, which turns out to be a very out-of-season Christmas movie. Eddie defends the selection as justified because it’s _‘a nice movie,’ _which is frankly adorable even if Richie can’t quite convince himself he likes it.

He just keeps thinking about “I miss you so much it hurts,” and about the way Tom Hanks’ voice quavers on the line “It just doesn’t happen twice,” and about how maybe that’s true and maybe it isn’t, but somewhere in the midst of it all he murmurs, “I couldn’t do it a second time.”

_‘You don’t have to,’ _Eddie replies. _‘I admit I didn’t think this one through though.’_

“I mean, it _is _October,” Richie mutters. “You’re like every department store in America, going all in for Christmas before we’ve even had Halloween.”

He hopes Eddie hasn’t been looking forward to snow in California; Seattle and Chicago, maybe, but sunny Los Angeles? Fat fucking chance.

_‘Every day is Halloween with a ghost around,’ _Eddie responds. _‘And just for the record there’s no fucking way I’m the only man out there who’d love to have you. Which sucks for all the men out there, since I’m right here.’_

If that makes Richie cry, fine; he’ll let Eddie have his gloating rights for having gotten Richie to cry through any part of a romantic comedy – he earned them.

When all’s said and done, Richie probably likes _Mamma Mia! _best, if only because it’s the most fun to joke about and it has an unfair number of genuinely catchy songs. Richie makes a mental note to get Eddie to watch it again with him when they can both sing along together. Maybe even do a horrible imitation of the dancing in it, knock over some furniture…

By the time they’ve finished off their movie marathon, Richie doesn’t need a lot of convincing to go to bed, but he does ask Eddie to stick close to him. He’s relieved that Eddie’s feeling “a little better,” but he desperately wants him to be a lot better, to not be hurting at all, and through every high and low of four whole movies, Richie never really forgets the frustration of not being able to do more.

He’s still ruminating on that, underneath all the rambling after-movie commentary he keeps up to distract Eddie just that little bit more, when something happens.

It’s fleeting, a moment that begins somewhere in between Richie ducking into the sink to wash his face and coming back up to towel himself dry; when he blinks a few stray droplets of water out of his eyelashes, he sees Eddie.

Their eyes meet in the reflection of the mirror. Richie immediately whips around, the towel he’d been holding in one hand dropping entirely forgotten to the floor, and he sees absolutely nothing – bare wall, the rack he’d grabbed the towel off of. Empty air.

When he turns back to the mirror, Eddie’s mouth is moving.

“Can’t hear you, Eds,” Richie says, soft and desperate. Eddie stops and just – looks at him. Big, brown, sad eyes and one hand raised toward Richie.

Richie blinks back the beginnings of a few tears and raises his own hand to meet Eddie’s, palm to palm. He can’t feel it, but he can see it; judging by the way Eddie’s own eyes immediately well up, he’s lucky enough to actually _feel _it, too.

“With all my heart,” Richie whispers. He means it as a joke – aren’t we just the cutest Hollywood couple, locked behind a mirror, me in a ratty old T-shirt and you in the one you borrowed from me – but it comes out sounding entirely genuine. Achingly, desperately genuine.

He has just enough time to catch Eddie’s soft smile and the “mine too” he mouths in response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have recently watched _Ghost _specifically because a couple of people have mentioned it as I’ve been writing this fic. I genuinely did expect it to lean more into the romance than it actually does. Imagine my disappointment! Also, full disclosure - despite my headcanon for Eddie, I personally do not usually like rom-coms and haven't actually seen all of _Sleepless in Seattle_ or a single second of _When Harry Met Sally_.
> 
> As long as I’m putting out some disclaimers, I’ve also never so much as set foot in any part of California, let alone L.A., so I’m basing my conclusions on the years I spent growing up in the northwestern U.S. instead, BUT I will defend the probability of finding even tackier shit than racks of cards by the registers at every roadside restaurant in Idaho, Oregon, etc. etc. WITH my dying breath.
> 
> Stay tuned to find out what that card actually says! ;3


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the delay! This one ran long and took me a lot longer than I'd intended it to - I was thinking I'd have it up, at the latest, by like... 6 or 7 hours ago!

Eddie immediately recognizes the downcast look on Richie’s face when he wakes up the next morning and still can’t tell Eddie’s there beyond the _‘Good morning’ _note waiting for him beside his glasses. He makes a pretty good effort to hide it behind sleepy cheer and optimism, but if he thinks he’s got Eddie fooled, he’s seriously underestimating him; Eddie decides there’s only one thing for it and reluctantly peels himself off of Richie’s comfortably warm back to write a new note goading him into inviting everyone out for coffee.

He makes a special point of getting Richie to tell them it was Eddie’s idea; he thinks Beverly will probably get the message, and from there it’s easy to convince Richie to bring his laptop. _‘I want to watch you write,’ _he tells him, and Richie shakes his head and smiles like he’s the luckiest man in the world.

“Miss you,” he says in response, and that’s all.

Eddie watches him pack his laptop into the brown leather case he uses to carry it – the one with just one over-the-shoulder strap, which Eddie hates because that kind of thing is _not _good for spinal health. If he ever gets the chance, he’ll get Richie a small backpack with a laptop pouch, and he’ll make sure he actually uses it.

“I know you do,” he says eventually. “That’s why I’m trying to do something about it.”

Usually when Richie showers, Eddie waits in the living room – or at the very least in the hallway just outside Richie’s bedroom – for the telltale sound of the bathroom door swinging open. Today, he sinks to the floor and presses his back to the bathroom door, and he tries not to envy Richie the hot water and clouds of steam. Maybe it would do something for the constant aching of his muscles. Maybe it would just feel good.

Unlike Richie, Eddie manages to avoid toppling or even _nearly _toppling over when the door swings open and away from him; he’s halfway through muttering a few choice words anyway when his eyes light on the fogged-over mirror behind Richie. It gives him an idea.

“Probably won’t work,” he mutters to himself as he climbs to his feet and lets Richie brush past him to find something in the walk-in.

He tries anyway. At first the glass just feels like a smooth surface layered with an equally solid sheet of tiny, raised bumps – like ice, but quite warm – but then the tip of his finger sinks through and a bit of water drips down to the palm of his hand.

It _does _feel nice, he thinks absently, even after it’s cooled down this much. He half-expects the moment to pass before he can get three whole letters written, but he’s in luck. When Richie slips back into the room to flick off the light, he has to do a double-take – and then a triple-take, and then he just stares with his hand frozen on the switch.

“…You really are a terrible ghost,” he says at last, his eyes still tracing the neat little _‘BOO’ _Eddie’s written into the lower corner of the mirror.

-*-

Richie buys two coffees the second they arrive to meet everyone else; he doesn’t even wait to go set his laptop bag down at the table first, much to Eddie’s dismay – and Richie’s, too, when it turns out that Mike’s already bought an extra coffee, as well.

They both lock eyes, surprised and then amused. Mike looks a little embarrassed on top of that when he shrugs awkwardly and says, “Well, I did it when we were all back in Derry, thought Eddie might appreciate the gesture.”

“I appreciated it then, too,” Eddie manages through a sudden haze of emotion.

_‘You should all split them,’ _he writes, then crosses that out and says, _‘Forgot you can’t hear’ – _and scribbles that off with a low sigh. _‘It made a big difference back then. Thank you both of you. But don’t let them go to waste, coffee’s so fucking expensive in this city.’_

When they see that one, they laugh.

“Coffee’s expensive in every city!” Bev says.

“The point is you get to feel included too,” Richie reminds him.

Somehow _that _provokes a several-round competition to see who can better describe the coffee for Eddie – the taste, the heat, the way the first sips pool in your belly – and Eddie reluctantly names Bill the winner, with an added, _‘Sorry Richie, not as good as your cat metaphor,’ _which of course means Richie gets badgered into explaining one half of that metaphor.

They never do actually split either coffee, so Eddie leans forward and wraps his hands around the both of them until they’re not quite hot enough for him to feel it radiating as far as his chest. He finds himself missing the warmth when it’s gone, but his friends give him plenty else to focus on. Richie starts up a conversation about movies and romantic comedies after explaining the previous night’s marathon. Bill swears not to pick a rom-com when he claims his prize—

“First choice at a movie night, right?” he asks, to which Richie retorts,

“Fine, but it’s cheating to pick one of your _own _movies”—

—and Ben says, “Actually there are a lot of good rom-coms out there,” which Beverly seems to find incredibly endearing, if the wide smile on her face is anything to go by.

“You _would _think that,” Richie grouses, but Eddie’s beginning to suspect he wouldn’t mind a dozen or two dozen more rom-coms if he were watching them with everyone – or even just with Eddie.

_‘Richie’s a liar anyway, he totally cried over Sleepless in Seattle,’ _Eddie writes; he leaves that paper with Richie, a subtle way of giving him the option of shutting that line of conversation down before it can actually happen.

When Richie sees it, he rolls his eyes good-naturedly and lets everyone else see it without so much as a moment’s hesitation.

“Can’t prove it,” he says anyway. “But if I _did, _it was definitely Eddie’s fault, which if I recall correctly meant you were gonna kick his ass, right Ben?”

Ben looks sheepishly down at the corner of his coffee’s cardboard sleeve as he picks at it. “I did say that.”

“Good luck fighting a ghost,” Eddie snorts.

“Then who’d give you all these great movie recommendations?” Beverly wonders, and Richie’s eyes get that soft look that makes Eddie’s brain work in slow motion.

“Touché,” he says.

They all wind up buying various pastries from the front counter and making a communal feast in the center of the table, which leads to another round of variously ridiculous descriptions. Eddie has to conclude that they look better than they actually taste, and that’s taking into account how dry they look on closer inspection.

They’re still not done eating when Mike clears his throat and says, “I have something else I want to ask Eddie, if that’s okay.”

Eddie raises an eyebrow at him and says, “Shoot.”

“Just nothing – macabre, alright?” Richie mutters.

“It isn’t,” Mike reassures him – reassures both of them. “Just – Eddie, do you feel a – a _pull? _I don’t know if there’s really a better way to put it, but – when you come close to being able to interact with things, has that changed? Or gotten easier?”

Eddie hums thoughtfully. “Dunno…”

Richie frowns. “Would I have felt something like that too?”

“Did you?”

_‘It’s not that it’s hard, it just happens sometimes and other times it doesn’t,’ _Eddie writes, but he waits to actually set the note down beside the crumbled remains of a blueberry muffin.

“Well, I think I had an easier time sleeping after it happened. After I – de-ghosted, or whatever, I mean. It could’ve been a lot of things, obviously, but there was this” – Richie shakes his hands in front of him emphatically – “_tension, _kind of. I don’t know, maybe that’s just in hindsight, but I slept a lot better the second time I went to sleep that night.”

“Nightmares aside,” Eddie murmurs, only half paying attention to his own words.

_‘I wouldn’t know about sleeping or not sleeping,’ _he writes cautiously. _‘But the pain works kind of like that.’_

He can almost feel the gentle caress of Richie’s hands on his skin, the tickle of water running down the length of his finger, Richie’s legs cushioning his head, the warm glow that radiates off a cup of coffee, the warm glow that is Richie, his chest pressed against Richie’s back, their hands tangling—

_‘It gets a little easier the closer I get.’_

Richie is the first one to spot Eddie’s note not long at all after he sets it down; he starts scanning the words with a cocky little grin on his face that very quickly turns considering before settling into… quiet wonder, maybe. Hope. “And the pain only started recently, so” – Richie passes the paper to Mike, and before he’s had half a chance to actually read it, says, “so what’s this about, Mike?”

Mike glances at him as if to say, _Slow down_, and reads Eddie’s words aloud with increasing excitement. “Yes – yes, that’s what I mean! I mean – kind of, but it _could _be!”

“Mikey?” Bill asks, a bit bewildered.

“Well, I haven’t read anything like this, really, but I’ve been thinking – about Richie being able to drift back to our side even _with_ Eddie touching him, that is, and I do think it’s because he’s alive.”

Eddie presses his lips together and stares down at the steadily cooling coffees in front of him.

“Thanks for the reminder,” Richie mutters.

“Listen, guys – if that could happen, then there _has_ to be something keeping Richie centered in this_ – _I don’t know, call it a plane – because that’s the only place someone who isn’t dead can exist.” In response to the blank looks and furrowed brows he gets from everyone else at the table, Mike sighs and says, “Just spit-balling.”

“And Eddie’s on the other side – another… plane?” Beverly asks.

“No – I mean, maybe he is, sort of, but maybe he wouldn’t be alone there if he was. He seems more like he’s stuck in the middle, and couldn’t something like that happen? The way he”—

“Mike, you said nothing too grim,” Richie says, quiet and uncomfortable.

“No, it’s okay,” Eddie says to no one in particular.

“You mean because he and It… died at the same time? Or because It killed him?” Ben asks. Richie shoots him a look, but Ben’s too focused on Mike to notice.

“A lot could’ve happened to complicate things, is all I’m saying,” Mike confirms. “And I’m thinking, maybe things are trying to right themselves somehow. Push him out of the middle, sort of.”

“Like those popsicle sticks you suck out of a tube,” Riche mutters. He gets a few looks for it, but he’s too lost in thought to notice it anymore than Ben had.

Eddie sets his next note down directly in front of Mike. He leans way across the table to do it, and his hands shake the entire time, so much that it’s painfully obvious again in the unsteady lines of his handwriting. The air at their table has gone so tense and still that a few other patrons are starting to cast curious glances their way; it makes for an easy opening for Eddie to break the silence.

_‘You think I have the same pull back to this side that Richie has?’_

Mike lets the rest of the Losers pass that one around the table, then leans way back in his chair and says, “I don’t know how else to explain it.”

“It does make the ‘fixing itself’ theory sound more… plausible?” Ben offers.

“‘Supernatural life support,’” Bill says. “Th-that’s what you called it, Richie, isn’t it?”

Eddie sees the obvious question coming before anyone gets bold enough to actually ask it; he has an answer written down and left on the table just in time for Beverly to _finally _say, “Richie, have either of you looked at Eddie’s chest lately?”

“Not me,” Richie says a little defensively. “Not since we bandaged it.”

_‘Never took the bandages off and I’m not doing it now or alone,’ _Eddie’s next note says.

“It would have to heal,” Beverly is saying. “Or he’d – he still might not”—

Make it, she doesn’t say. They all know.

Eddie is becoming increasingly, unpleasantly aware of how every inch of his body hurts. It’s far from the first time he’s thought about the traditional wisdom in moments where it’s gotten too difficult to ignore. Pain is your body telling you something’s wrong. _Something’s wrong_.

Is that something being a ghost, or is it the wound in his chest that was probably bound to kill him one way or another, sewer or no sewer, ambulance or no ambulance? Is he going to finally cross back over to the world Richie belongs to just to bleed out all over the floor of their apartment?

He’d rather stay like this than give Richie more things to have nightmares about. He’d rather stay like this than go wherever it is he was _supposed _to go when that giant blade impaled him and his heart beat its last.

Eddie doesn’t _care_ if this is all just the last trick Pennywise ever played on them; he can’t bear to imagine it ending. Not like that.

Richie must be thinking something similar, because his expression is pinched, closed off, several steps past worried, and everyone else is looking at him like they’re afraid he’ll break. He’s the only one who refuses to look anyone in the eyes, so once more he’s the only one who sees Eddie’s note and picks it up. He doesn’t even bother showing it around, just drops his hand back to the table after reading it, screws his eyes briefly shut and says, “He says he hasn’t looked. He doesn’t want to.”

“Can’t blame him for that,” Ben says, sounding strained.

“But can you think about it?” Bill presses after a brief, uncomfortable lull. It’s hard to tell which of them he’s talking to, Richie or Eddie – maybe both of them, or whichever one of them will listen. “These are answers we can actually get, and it could be important.”

Richie sighs. “Yeah, makes sense. It’s still up to Eddie.”

_‘If I took my shirt off now there’d be no getting it back on,’ _Eddie writes – an easy invitation for Richie to crack a joke, or not, but maybe it’ll make him feel better either way – and then, _‘But I’ll think about it.’_

If it weren’t so fucking _frustrating, _it might almost be funny watching everyone impatiently scan the table for the note they evidently all know is coming but can’t actually see; Mike eventually fills the silence with a suggestion that they can at least be _prepared _for what he delicately refers to as a “problem” with the gaping stab-wound in Eddie’s chest.

That prompts a brief googling session featuring increasingly sketchy-sounding searches for things like: stab wounds, first-aid for stab wounds and massive internal/external bleeding, organ damage, the closest hospitals to Richie’s apartment, the _best _hospitals that are close to Richie’s apartment, good cafés that are close to good hospitals, and maybe most ridiculously of all, methods for getting bloodstains out of upholstery – _just in case _their search histories weren’t raising enough red flags already.

When Ben finally interrupts their astoundingly quick Internet spiral to read Eddie’s note, Richie’s so quick to take the bait that he clearly doesn’t think at all before lighting up like a Christmas tree and saying, “Well when you put it like _that_.”

He immediately goes red in the face, and instead of stopping, backtracking, or immediately changing the subject, he does the classic Richie thing and barrels straight ahead despite his already apparent regret.

“That’s just more to look forward to,” he adds, “not that I wouldn’t like to help”—and, finally, he shakes his head, brings a hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose and says, “Okay, fuck, never mind. Ignore that. You know what, Eds, take it from me, being invisible has its advantages.”

“So does having a brain-to-mouth filter,” Eddie says. He makes an instinctive move to scoot his chair closer to Richie’s – because the A.C. is up too high in this stupid café, and also because Richie looks spooked enough at this point to actually run. While an opening like that is exactly what he and Beverly need, Eddie would rather it not happen because of _this_.

The chair doesn’t budge, though, and it’s not Eddie’s hand on his sleeve, but Bev’s that stops Richie from getting all the way to his feet and making a beeline for the customers-only restroom.

The smile she gives him is genuinely amused, but without the edge of someone laughing at another person’s expense. “Wait up,” she says lightly, and Richie freezes like he’s about to be punched.

Bill smiles at him, too, and says, “We’re glad you’re not invisible.”

“Eddie did warn us you’d start in on making ghost puns about you two eventually, didn’t he?” Mike chimes in. “We’re still waiting on those.”

“Technically I never mentioned puns,” Eddie recalls, but then – maybe it _was _kind of implied.

Richie just looks… thrown. He blinks a few times before cautiously lowering himself back into his chair and saying, “You say that _now_, but no one makes it more than two or three puns in before they start begging you to stop.”

The other Losers exchange relieved glances. Ben says, “We’ll give you a pass on up to… five?”

“Maybe four?” Beverly hedges with obviously faked trepidation.

Richie laughs; it’s music to Eddie’s ears. “I see how it is. It’s all fun and games ‘til I start calling him my _boo._”

“There it is,” Mike groans after a round of unforced laughter. “Terrible.”

“You better _not_,” Eddie complains.

Richie grins. “Eddie’s definitely telling me off about that one, I can just feel it.”

“Good!” Eddie snaps.

“Well, he never signed off on the pass, so that’s only fair, right?” Bill says.

Richie huffs. “That jerk wrote _‘BOO’ _on the fucking mirror this morning, he doesn’t get to complain.”

“Don’t _tell _them that!”

The conversation continues on like that for a while. Richie does eventually still excuse himself to the restroom; the door at the back of the café has barely closed behind him before Beverly’s pulling Eddie’s card out of her bag.

Ben, predictably, doesn’t look the least bit surprised, but Bill and Mike both give her curious looks when she goes to slip the card into the main pocket of Richie’s laptop case.

“A little gift from Eddie,” Beverly says with a wink. “From the restaurant the other night. Not a word to Richie about it, though, okay? It’s supposed to be a surprise.”

_‘Mission accomplished,’ _Eddie writes, and makes sure to leave this one somewhere Richie shouldn’t be able to see it. _‘Thanks Bev.’ _He even makes a passable effort at drawing a smiley face beside it.

-*-

Richie sets his laptop bag down on the coffee table with a relieved sigh the second he’s satisfied that he’s given Eddie enough time to follow him back into their apartment and can let the door swing shut behind them. No one else had bothered to bring their laptops this time, so it spent the entire trip hanging untouched off the back of Richie’s chair; it’d probably still be there now if his friends hadn’t all immediately reminded him to take it with him when they got up to leave.

“Oh, shit,” Richie mutters as he rolls his shoulder a little to work out the tension that’s built up under the weight of the damn thing. “Sorry, Eds – just realized I forgot to actually write anything while we were there.”

He sort of doubts Eddie’s request was anything all that serious to begin with, so it comes as an odd-but-pleasant surprise when he finds a note waiting beside his bag that says, _‘So write something now.’_

He feels a bit put on the spot, but it’s just Eddie, after all; if anything, Richie can count on him to give honest feedback, and besides – if he’s this determined to watch Richie work, it’s probably because he needs another distraction to get him through the rest of the afternoon. At the end of the day, that’s like eighty percent of the _point _of his career, so of course Richie hauls the bag into the kitchen and pulls out a chair for Eddie right beside his own.

He trails off halfway through an embarrassed disclaimer about not expecting much out of a first draft written under the pressure of an audience whose opinions he cares a disproportionate amount about; something slips out alongside his laptop and slides across the table before Richie’s even got his computer free of the case.

“What the…”

It’s an envelope, he realizes on closer inspection, and a completely unfamiliar one at that – bright orange and otherwise unmarked. Richie puzzles over it for a long while before curiosity gets the better of him. The back part isn’t sealed shut, just tucked into the flap, so he gently eases it open and tugs the card out.

“Oh,” he breathes, because it’s immediately obvious what this was doing hidden away in his bag.

The front of the card features a big, cartoonish looking ghost with a wide, goofy smile and stubby arms extended in a semi-circle in front of itself, as if it were holding something invisible against its chest. The drawing is set against a blue backdrop with a black bubble floating just over its head, and the all-caps font inside the bubble reads, _‘Sending you a big ghost hug!’ _The word “ghost” is underlined for reasons Richie can’t begin to parse.

Richie laughs around the growing lump in his throat. He is _not _going to cry over a card. “Eds, this is literally _the _cutest thing you’ve ever done,” he gushes instead.

He stares at the card for a while, smiling and dewy-eyed, and then finally he thumbs it open.

The inside is even simpler than the outside; it’s just a plain white card with a few printed lines that say, _‘(You might not be able to feel it… …but it’s there.) Happy Halloween.’_

Okay, so maybe he _is _going to cry over a card, but it’s the kind of crying that brings more laughter out with it.

“So _now _we’re acknowledging Halloween, huh?” he teases wetly. “No more Christmas movies for the time being?”

When he looks past the card to the table, he sees a bit of paper that wasn’t there before.

It says, _‘Glad you like it. Sorry I couldn’t write anything inside, but I think it stands up pretty well on its own.’_

“It’s very you,” Richie agrees, more laughing than crying now. “And I don’t _like_ it, I _love_ it. This baby’s staying on the fridge year-round.”

“...very _us_. And fuck you, you can’t complain about off-season holiday shit and then leave a Halloween card up all year.”

Eddie’s voice sounds muffled, like it’s coming from the other side of a poorly-insulated wall, but given that it’s accompanied by a puff of cool air against the side of Richie’s neck, it’s obvious just how close he actually is.

Carefully, Richie turns in his chair to give Eddie better access, and he wraps his arms around the space in front of him, like the picture on the card, connecting with nothing but empty air.

“My bad,” he says. “But it’s just too adorable to be limited to a few months out of the year.”

“…Can you see me?” Eddie asks, crushingly hopeful.

“Just hear you,” Richie says. “Sorry, Eds.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Eddie sighs. “Mm, you’re warm anyway. Feels nice.”

That makes Richie pause. “Are you cold?”

“Always,” Eddie says, and then sarcastically, “I assumed you’d noticed.”

“Shuddup, I mean do you _feel _cold? Want a blanket or a jacket or something?”

“No, Richie. I don’t get cold, I just… _am_ cold. Right? It’s not like… well – actually, maybe?”

“What?”

“I hadn’t thought about it,” Eddie admits. “But the – the coffee shop today was cold, wasn’t it?”

Richie blinks. “I honestly didn’t notice.”

“Are you serious? They had the A.C. up way too high. People get sick from things like that!”

Richie would be giving Eddie a pointed look if he could actually see him. “Is this new, too?”

“I – I don’t know,” Eddie says, sounding a little shaken and a lot like he _does _know but can’t quite wrap his head around it. He _also_ sounds like he’s a little farther away now; Richie lowers his arms back to his sides. “I’ve been able to tell when things are warm because _I’m _not, I guess, but it was different with cold. When did that start…?”

Richie doesn’t have an answer to that. “So? Want a jacket?”

“Couldn’t take it with me, anyway,” he hears Eddie sigh. “I’m not… all there.”

“You’re not uncomfortable?” Richie asks anxiously.

“No – no, I… it doesn’t even really hurt right now.”

“Okay,” Richie relents. “Just – keep me posted, alright? I’ll let everyone else know, too. Six heads are better than two.”

Eddie chuckles. “Of course, Rich. Still gonna write?”

“…Was that not just an excuse to get me to find this card? Which reminds me, how’d you manage, anyway? How long has it _been_ there?”

“Just since today. Bev helped,” Eddie says. “But _I’m _the one who found it.”

He sounds so pleased with himself, Richie would give anything to smother him in kisses, but he doesn’t say that. He just looks down at the card on the table and smiles and smiles and makes a quick mental note to thank Bev for playing the middleman.

“It’s perfect,” he remarks eventually. “What’s it even _for, _though? I mean – if we’re not the bizarrely specific target demographic here, who _is?”_

There’s a longer, quieter moment that makes Richie think he’s lost his tenuous connection to Eddie again, but then he hears Eddie exhale, long and slow.

“Long-distance relationships, I guess.”

-*-

The distance narrows to nothing again much sooner and a lot less pleasantly than Eddie had hoped.

He doesn’t know if it begins gradually, or if there’s a single moment lost in the midst of dozens of others like it that kicks it off. He doesn’t even know if the change really begins as he’s lying with Richie in bed that night, because it could have also started _before_ that, in the coffee shop or on Richie’s couch or thousands of miles away on a dusty, bright-lit, weed-strewn lawn in Derry.

What he knows, hazily and then with creeping, certain dread, is that he doesn’t _just _crave the warmth Richie positively radiates; he can feel its absence in himself. He can feel his fingers going stiff with cold. He can feel the stinging, burning, numbing pain of it, starting from his extremities and then running through him like a sharpened blade, all the way to his core. And all the while, the all-too-familiar ache amplifying every surge of discomfort, like every nerve in his body is screaming at him –

_– something’s wrong something’s wrong something –_

The sun rises behind the blinds, but Eddie doesn’t notice it until the sickly glow brightens enough to wake Richie. It does a better job of that than all Eddie’s nudging and quiet pleas; Richie’s brow creases in a tiny frown, the way it always does when he’s just woken up, and he rolls away from where Eddie’s curled himself up against Richie’s side.

“No good morning today?” Richie mumbles when he sees the empty bedside table. He yawns. “Must be runnin’ lower on paper’n I thought.”

“Fuck you,” Eddie groans. His hands are way too stiff for writing.

Richie gets up to shower with a parting request for a quick update – “Just tear off a corner or something, ‘kay? Or I’ll worry” – and Eddie moves over to lie on the warm spot Richie left vacant.

It takes him a lot longer than it should to remember that he doesn’t have to be able to write anything to send a message. With painful, creeping movements, he manages to dig one of his spare pens out of his pocket; he sets it just inches away from himself and then curls up even tighter against the cold.

Too slow. When Richie comes out of the shower, he doesn’t seem to notice the pen. He _definitely_ doesn’t notice Eddie.

“Rich,” Eddie calls, but his voice is too thready and quiet for Richie to hear.

“C’mon, Eds,” Richie murmurs, scanning the room in front of him with a growing frown. “Are you okay?”

Eddie thinks he responds, or tries to, but he can’t get enough air and he can’t remember – did he say anything? Did Richie hear him? Richie is right in front of him until he isn’t, and all Eddie can think to do is follow him wherever he went.

He moves to the edge of the bed like he’s moving through a pool of honey. His whole body screams in protest when he forces himself to straighten out enough to throw his legs over the edge.

When his feet brush the floor, he stares at them for a long time, trying to piece together why he was wearing shoes in bed. No one does that, he thinks. And it isn’t sanitary, and he can’t just go walking around their apartment with shoes on. It’s… rude, he decides. He’d leave dirty footprints.

So before he can follow Richie, he has to take these off. That makes sense, even if it does turn out to be harder than it probably should be. Eddie fumbles with the laces long enough to get frustrated with them before finally deciding that they’re tied too tight for his unresponsive fingers. He resorts to forcing them off by shoving at the heels until they finally slip off and fall back down to the carpet.

When he tries to actually stand, his legs immediately buckle under his weight. Eddie hears a heavy thud before he registers his sudden change in position and the scratch of carpet fibers against the side of his face. Pain lances through him, and he makes a strangled sound into the hand he brings to his face.

“Eddie?!”

-*-

Richie goes to bed feeling good, so it makes sense that he wakes up feeling good. It makes sense that he doesn’t jump straight to worry when Eddie doesn’t leave him any notes. It makes sense that he assumes Eddie must not have been in the room to hear his request – that’s all. It makes sense that he decides to go looking for him out in the living room instead, and it makes sense that he searches the kitchen and every flat surface in the apartment for notes he might’ve missed.

He waits as patiently as he can after asking Eddie with the first notes of real tension in his voice to _please _just say something.

And he does, kind of, if the adrenaline-jolting thud that reaches Richie from the bedroom counts as saying something.

Richie races back down the hall and is greeted with the sight of Eddie in the flesh, sprawled out on the bedroom floor with a hand pressed so tightly to his mouth that his knuckles are turning white.

White against pink, Richie realizes numbly as he kneels beside Eddie and gently pulls his hand away from his face.

“Eddie,” he says, several times. “Talk to me. Please. Where does it hurt?”

“Rich,” Eddie slurs. It comes out sounding more like “ridge.” His eyes flutter open a moment later. “‘M here.”

“Yeah, buddy, you are,” Richie says, palming the side Eddie’s cheek. It’s just as pale as it always is, but it stands out more now against the red of his nose and ears. Like he’s been outside on a cold winter morning, except that for the first time in a long time, his skin feels _warm_ beneath Richie’s.

Eddie mumbles something else as Richie does his best to guide him slowly and gently into an upright position. Richie can’t understand a word of it, and when he tries to get Eddie to repeat himself, all he gets in response is a confused look. Before he can make it two words into another sentence, Eddie makes clumsy fists in the front of Richie’s shirt and presses in so close it’s like he’s trying to burrow right into him.

“Hey,” Richie murmurs as a weak tremor runs through Eddie. “Eds.”

“Hey,” Eddie repeats, still slurring his words. The breath that gusts across Richie’s throat is shallow and warm. “Long time no see.”

“Eds, you’re really starting to freak me out, can you just”—

Eddie cuts him off with a quiet whimper and a short, “Cold.”

“You’re – you’re cold?” Richie repeats, and Eddie nods against him. “Fuck, okay, hang on, Eds. Just – let’s get you under some blankets at least, and I’ll be right back”—

Richie has to force Eddie’s hands open before he can straighten up the rest of the way after setting him down on the bed. The soft cry Eddie makes is enough to make Richie feel like the biggest asshole on the planet; he knocks several things out of the medicine cabinet in his hurry to find the thermometer and get back to Eddie. He finds him curled into a tight ball under the comforter, breathing in short, shallow little gasps.

“‘s ‘at clean,” Eddie says when Richie tries to get him to open his mouth.

“Not our biggest concern right now,” Richie reminds him. “Open up or I’m calling you an ambulance right now.”

“Can’ do that,” Eddie tells him. “Can’ see me.”

“I will,” Richie insists. “Even if I have to walk them through the whole thing myself.”

Eddie frowns like he’s not sure what Richie’s talking about, but he lets Richie slide the thermometer under this tongue and hold it there until it beeps.

Richie swears when he reads the number on the display. _87.3 F_ – that can’t be good.

“The good news is you’re not room temperature anymore,” Richie says when Eddie’s gaze falls to linger on the thermometer. Richie doesn’t show it to him.

“Bad news?” Eddie asks. One of his hands creeps forward until it’s close enough to bat at Richie’s other hand. “Don’ go.”

“I’m not – I’m not going,” Richie says. “I’m – I need to call the others. Need to get you help.”

“Please,” Eddie responds. Richie’s pretty sure it has nothing to do with anything he just said; he’s pretty sure Eddie didn’t follow much of it. Another shiver rocks him like a leaf in a breeze, and he gasps softly. “Ow…”

Richie drops the thermometer onto the nightstand and pulls Eddie back to his chest. He makes a cocoon of the comforter and keeps one arm wrapped around Eddie while he dials the first number he manages to pull up on his phone.

“Hello?”

“Ben,” Richie says without preamble, “I need help. I need all of you over here _now_.”

He hears Ben say something to someone – Bev, probably – and then, “Bev’s calling everyone. We’re on our way.”

“Ben – wait.”

“Yeah?”

“Eddie’s – I think he’s hypothermic,” Richie tells him. “Okay, his temperature’s really low and I – I don’t know if I should just call an ambulance. Probably should, but what if”—

“We’ll come with some things to help warm him up,” Ben says immediately. “And if the rest of us can see him too, we’ll know there’s a chance paramedics could. Okay? Look up some basic information – what to do, what not to do – and try to keep him as warm as you can until we get there.”

“O-okay,” Richie breaths. He jumps a little when he feels Eddie press a kiss to his throat.

“‘M here,” he says when Richie looks at him. “Don’t cry.”

Richie’s throat tightens. He gives Eddie a gentle squeeze, and when he speaks, he knows he sounds dangerously close to tears. “I’ll leave the door unlocked,” he promises. “Remember the passcode?”

“Yeah. See you soon, Rich. Hang in there, both of you.”

The line clicks and goes silent; Richie presses a kiss to the top of Eddie’s head and doesn’t drop his phone until he’s scanned two different sites for first-aid information. By the time he has a plan in mind, Eddie’s shivering is starting to get more frequent, and each wave of it is accompanied by more shaky moans and bitten-off noises.

“Eddie. I need to move, okay? I need to get you some things.”

“Wait. They can – just wait,” Eddie breathes. “Don’t go.”

“I’ll be right back. I’m gonna get you some more blankets. To help warm you up. Here,” he says, and sets a five-minute timer on his phone. He presses it into Eddie’s hands and tries not to notice how he seems to struggle to close his fingers around it. “I’ll be back before this runs out. Promise.”

Eddie’s eyes slip shut, and he mouths, “‘Kay.”

“_Watch_ the timer, Eds. Don’t close your eyes.”

“Wasn’t,” Eddie argues, but he does as he’s told. Richie gets him situated against a small pile of pillows, _mostly _horizontal but a little more comfortable, tucks the comforter all the way up to his chin and then hurries back out of the room and down the hall to the kitchen.

Richie makes short work of emptying out several plastic water bottles and filling them with water he thinks is probably at a gentle enough level of warm to avoid delivering a dangerous shock to Eddie’s system. He unlocks the front door and turns up the thermostat before taking the water bottles back to the bedroom.

“O-one minute, twenty-six seconds,” Eddie tells him, voice shaking, and Richie runs a placating hand through his hair before leaving again to gather up a whole armload of blankets from the hall closet.

“Safe,” he jokes lightly when he comes back and finds that the alarm still hasn’t gone off. He drops the blankets at the foot of the bed and reaches over to turn it off before it can startle Eddie.

“C’mere,” Eddie slurs. Richie can see him shaking even with the comforter tucked around him.

Richie doesn’t answer, just gets to work unfolding blankets and layering them on top of the comforter. He takes a smaller one – an old, mostly unused Christmas gift, he thinks, but it could just as easily have been some impulse buy he doesn’t remember making – and wraps it around the top of Eddie’s head and neck, tucking one of the warm water bottles in alongside it.

Eddie watches him closely all the while. He doesn’t even protest when Richie takes the phone out of his hands and replaces it with another water bottle.

“Is it warm enough?” Richie asks, half just to get Eddie talking again.

“L-like I’d know,” Eddie says, but his hands still curl around it with apparent effort. “Come – come_ here, _Rich.”

“Don’t wanna jostle you,” Richie says. “Online it said”—

“Don’t f-fucking care,” Eddie interrupts. He’d look at least a little more intimidating if he weren’t bundled up from head to toe like a baby or a small, angry animal, but Richie still relents without even teasing him for it. He slips under the covers from the other side of the bed, his movements slow and careful, and finally presses in alongside Eddie, who makes a noise that was probably meant to be a sigh before the shaking made it sound more concerning than content.

“Keep talking, Eds.”

“B-bout what?” Eddie asks. Richie reaches over and presses the last two water bottles to either side of his chest. He _thinks _that’s what “chest walls” is supposed to mean, and if it’s not – at least it can’t hurt. He hopes. Eddie barely seems to notice; all his attention is focused on Richie, and Richie would really like to keep it that way.

“Dunno,” he says with a tense smile. “Just anything.”

Eddie frowns at him. “Okay… what’s fwih mean?”

Richie blinks, his expression probably mirroring Eddie’s, but for entirely different reasons. How delirious can a person get before it qualifies as a really bad sign? His hand hovers over his phone in his pocket.

Eddie huffs impatiently, his expression a little clearer. “Y’know – f-w-i-w.”

“…Why?”

“You said – n-no, you wrote it. In a… text or something. When y-you w-were sick.”

Richie doesn’t even try to hide his incredulity. “Dude, you spend so much time googling shit and – and I’m _assuming _working online, and you don’t even know _that?_”

“If – if my fucking hands would move right and I wasn’t h-holding this,” Eddie says, giving the water bottle a weak shake, “j-just want you to know I’d be flipping you off.”

“I’ll just try to picture it,” Richie assures him.

“F-fuck off, at least I know how to spell Ouija.”

Richie’s mouth falls open. “I told you not to read that!”

“Y-yeah, _after _I’d already read it, b-because you _said _I could.”

“You’re so”—

“Hey, guys?” Ben’s voice filters in from down the hall. Richie stiffens immediately, and Eddie responds by dropping the water bottle to cling insistently to the arm Richie has draped over him. _It’s okay. Don’t go._

“I-in here,” Eddie calls, a little too quiet by Richie’s estimation.

Steeling himself, he raises his own voice and says, “Bedroom.”

He hears two sets of footsteps, and then Ben appears in the doorway with Beverly hot on his heels. “Bill and Mike are gonna bring some first aid compresses,” Ben is saying, “but in the meantime”—

Richie doesn’t even have to ask if Ben can see Eddie, too. No sooner has he zeroed in on the two of them in bed together – but don’t _think about that, _Richie tries to remind himself against the increasingly panicked thudding of his own heart – than he’s crossed the room to press a hand to Eddie’s forehead.

“Eddie,” he breathes, wide-eyed. “Oh my god…”

“Hey,” Eddie says. He sounds a little embarrassed, but he’s smiling. “Long time, no see.”

Beverly steps up alongside Ben and gives Richie a reassuring smile. “Looks like you had the right idea,” she tells him. “Feeling any better, Eddie?”

“Feel like a f-fucking icicle,” Eddie informs her. “But n-not so…”

“Incoherent?” Richie suggests, and Eddie nods. “He was really out of it. Scared the shit out of me. Uh, there’s – there’s a thermometer on the table there,” and he gestures, moving just a little so he’s not quite as close to Eddie as he had been.

Eddie still doesn’t release his grip on Richie’s arm, so he says, “Not going anywhere, Eds.”

“Uh-huh,” Eddie says, sounding entirely unconvinced.

Beverly eases herself onto the end of the bed and looks between them again. “Richie”—

“I know. I know. I’m not gonna throw up, that’s progress,” Richie huffs, taking the thermometer from Ben when he holds it out to him. “Obviously I know now’s not the time to be getting all hung up over a little touching just because it’s in front of people.”

Eddie exhales unevenly and lets go of Richie’s arm under the blankets. “‘s okay,” he says reluctantly. “N-not dying. You don’t have to.”

The shivering hasn’t let up at all. Richie moves his arm so it’s curled around Eddie’s back, shifts closer to Eddie again, and says, “Yeah, it _is_ okay. I don’t want – you shouldn’t _have _to be literally dying for me to fucking grow a pair.”

Eddie snorts softly and lets Richie put the thermometer in his mouth again.

While they wait, Ben straightens back up and says, “Well, as I was saying, if you think you might be able to drink something” – he looks at Eddie, who narrows his eyes at him – “I was gonna go make some herbal tea for you. It’s supposed to help.”

The thermometer beeps as if on cue: _90.9_ _F_

Richie reads the number off, earning a frown from Eddie before he says, mostly for his benefit, “That’s better, it was – it was lower before.”

“Lower than _that_?” Ben says. “Jesus.”

Eddie looks strangely unconcerned – just thoughtful, maybe, which doesn’t make sense until he sighs and says, “I’ll try.”

Richie raises both eyebrows at that. “You’ll try to drink something?”

“Yeah, asshole, that’s what I s-said,” Eddie retorts, but the fight drains out of him just as quickly. “Dunno if I – I can, but it’s like I – I need _s-something._”

Ben smiles at him. “Be right back, then.”

He’s halfway out the door when he pauses and says, “Oh, and Eddie?”

“Y-yeah?”

“Maybe try taking that bandage off your cheek at least?”

He disappears without waiting for an answer, but Bev follows it up with, “You know Bill will probably ask about it as soon as we’ve got you warmed up.”

Eddie nods, dislodging some of the blankets and prompting Richie to tuck them back in around him.

“Rich, could you?”

“Sure,” Richie says. The tape is starting to come loose at the edges, anyway, so it doesn’t take too much pulling to get it off.

The gauze comes away to reveal nothing – no hole, no blood, just a splotch of puckered, pink-and-purple scarring and the otherwise uninterrupted skin of Eddie’s cheek.

Richie stares it at, and Eddie stares at Richie, and Beverly makes a quiet noise like crying behind him just as he’s reaching out to touch the scar.

Eddie flinches, or tries to. He doesn’t have much of anywhere to go, sandwiched between a thick pile of blankets and a little stack of pillows. Richie still stops with his hand not quite touching Eddie’s skin.

“R-Richie,” he yelps. “What? What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing,” he and Bev say almost in unison.

“It healed,” Richie explains to the bewildered look on Eddie’s face. “There’s no open wound, Eds, just a scar.”

Eddie squirms under the blankets until he manages to get a hand free. He’s still trembling and uncoordinated, so Richie guides his hand to the right spot and lets him feel the uneven scar tissue as his expression gradually shifts from confusion to disbelief and then, finally, to wonder.

“Oh,” he whispers.

“Yeah,” Richie breathes, a little overwhelmed, himself. “That’s gotta be a good sign, right?”

“Th-th-think so?”

“I do,” Beverly says, reaching out to give Eddie’s blanket pile an affectionate pat. “I think it’s one less thing to worry about. Maybe two,” she says with a meaningful glance down in the general direction of Eddie’s chest.

Eddie’s eyes fill with tears. “I – m-maybe – d-does it look okay?”

Richie tangles their legs together under the covers and rubs slow, warming circles into the knuckles of Eddie’s hand before gently guiding it back under the covers. “It looks really badass,” he promises. “Like the perfect scar to make up stories about for all your ultra-boring risk management friends.”

“R-risk _analysis_,” Eddie corrects obligingly.

“He doesn’t need to make them up. The truth is badass enough,” Beverly says.

Eddie laughs, thin and exhausted but genuine. “‘S right. Making stories up’s for when the r-real one doesn’t involve a-an actual stabbing.”

“Got me there,” Richie agrees.

“What’d I miss?” Ben asks as he strides back into the room. He’s got a hefty, still-steaming mug of tea with a spoon in it in one hand and the honey bear from the kitchen cupboard in the other.

“Eddie’s cheek healed,” Beverly tells him as he joins them on Eddie’s other side.

Ben beams at Eddie, who’s clearly paying more attention to the cup in his hands than to any of them. “Hey, congratulations. That’s one less thing to worry about!”

Eddie blinks and glances up at Richie; the second their eyes meet, they both break into quiet laughter that’s only curbed by Eddie’s cold-induced shortness of breath, which ensures that the moment ends with Richie rubbing slow circles against his back and murmuring to him to _breathe, just breathe_. Ben’s stuck looking back and forth between the two of them and Bev in utter perplexity until she finally stops laughing long enough to say, “I just – I just said that.”

“Oh – right,” Ben says, pink-cheeked, as if he’d known that all along and only just now remembered. “Uh – Eddie, do you want some honey in this?”

Eddie nods with only a trace of hesitancy, still bright-eyed and even a little enthusiastic on the heels of a promising revelation and a bit of levity among friends. Richie helps him free his hands and then rearrange the blankets so that every bit of him is still as well covered as it can be while Ben mixes the sweetener in.

“Careful,” he says when he passes it to Richie, who holds the drink steady while Eddie wraps his badly-shaking hands around either side of it. “It’s hot.”

“_Good_,” Eddie says, but he doesn’t take a sip. He just holds the mug in his hands and looks at it, his throat working like he’s afraid he won’t be able to swallow properly if he tries. Ben only waits a moment or two more before discreetly excusing himself to grab a chair from the kitchen.

“Maybe three,” Bev calls after him, and then with an understanding look in Eddie and Richie’s direction, gets up to follow him. “I’ll help!”

Eddie breathes a tiny sigh of relief.

“Need me to go too?” Richie asks. “I bet we could fit the whole table in here with three people lifting it.”

Eddie laughs. “C-couldn’t hold it without help,” he says, which is probably true. He takes a few more sharp, shallow breaths, then says, “Fuck it,” and takes a microscopically small sip from the edge of the cup.

“Wow, did you even taste it?”

Eddie blinks down at the drink, then up at Richie. He looks like he’s just been given the world’s most sumptuous blend of tea on a golden platter, all wide-eyed and astonished. “Y-yes!” he exclaims earnestly. “Oh my fucking god, it’s”—

“The first thing you’ve tasted in weeks?”

“The first thing I’ve tasted in weeks,” Eddie repeats almost reverently, taking another, slightly longer sip this time.

“Hey, you guys can come back,” Richie calls. “He likes it.”

He can hear their footsteps approaching with suspicious immediacy from down the hall, the sound of wood knocking against wood preceding them; Richie figures he has enough time to steal a peppermint-and-chamomile kiss, which Eddie gratefully returns.

Their faces are still less than an inch apart when Bev comes in and sets two chairs down a short distance from the bed. Richie withdraws, albeit reluctantly and with Eddie’s eyes very much fixed on him, as Ben plops down the third and lowers himself into it. Bev climbs back onto the foot of the bed and perches there, gargoyle-style but with eighty percent less hunching.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she says.

“That’s three strikes,” Richie says. The jokey casualness is probably offset by how hot his face feels, but no one comments on it, and he feels impossibly light despite also feeling _seen_ in a way he knows can still scare him.

“You get a freebie for making this,” Eddie tells Ben, and _oh _how badly Richie wants to lean in again to kiss the pink that’s beginning to dust his cheeks. ‘I’ve never blushed’ – that _liar_.

Ben laughs. “I’m glad you like it. Hopefully it helps.”

“M-makes breathing a little easier, too,” Eddie says approvingly. “Hot liquids.”

“Oh, I remember that!” Richie exclaims. “You used to drink a crazy amount of coffee in high school, made you even more high-strung than usual. You never even put cream in it, it was fucking _gross_”—

“Beep beep, Rich,” Eddie says, not even bothering to hide his affectionate smile.

This time, they all hear the door open; Ben gets up to call them back with a little wave from the doorway. “Here! Did you guys find them?”

“Yeah,” Mike calls. There’s the shuffle of shoes being taken off and then the quiet rustling of plastic bags, which grows louder and louder until he and Bill step into the room. Bill in particular looks like he’s almost beside himself – not that Richie can blame him – so of course when he sees Eddie, he looks a physical weight’s just been lifted from his shoulders.

Richie wordlessly offers to take the tea from Eddie so he can accept the hugs that are definitely incoming; Eddie lets it go only grudgingly after sneaking one more quick swallow, and then he spreads his arms in an awkward little invitation. Bill and Mike both accept it – gently, at Richie’s stern insistence, but no less enthusiastically for it. Eddie’s shivering hasn’t stopped, but it’s eased up enough that he doesn’t look quite as much like he’s about to shake apart.

“We missed you,” Bill tells him.

“You’re gonna be fine,” Mike says, and pulls away shortly before Bill does to offer Richie the bag he brought with him. “You look really good, all things considered.”

“Thanks, because I feel _bad_,” Eddie huffs. Richie laughs and passes Eddie’s tea back to him; he accepts it gladly, to Ben’s apparent gratification. While Eddie returns to the apparently very consuming task of taking increasingly long drinks of tea, Richie pulls out several compresses and gets them ready for Eddie. They heat up surprisingly quickly after a few good squeezes, so he hurries to replace the warm water bottles first. Eddie squirms under the attention, but the gel packs are clearly more comfortable than a hunk of plastic – and warmer, too – so he doesn’t actually complain.

Richie passes a couple more to Bev. “Could you put those by his feet?”

That _does _get an irritable look out of Eddie, but his only protest is a quiet groan when Beverly lifts the blankets enough to tuck the packs in.

“Better?” she asks once she’s got the blankets neatly rearranged.

Eddie gives a reluctant nod and hides his face behind the mug of tea.

“Your cheek’s healed,” Bill notes, breaking a semi-comfortable silence still in the process of settling over them. It’s obvious from the way he says it that he’d already noticed – probably almost as soon as he noticed Eddie himself.

“Mm-hm,” Eddie says, swallowing the last of his tea with a look of pure bliss on his face. “Don’t ask about the other one, though. ‘S still covered.”

“Yeah, I figured. Removing clothes isn’t the best treatment for hypothermia unless they’re soaking wet,” Bill notes. “Nice shirt, by the way.”

Eddie glances down at the bit of Hawaiian shirt that’s peeking out from behind layers of blankets, and Richie gets to watch a slow blush creep up Eddie’s neck. “F-fuck, that’s – um, it’s Richie’s. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Richie repeats with a wide grin.

Eddie pointedly ignores him. “How do _you _know about treating hypothermia, anyway?”

“Oh,” Bill says, sheepishly. “It came up in a story I was writing.”

-*-

The warmer Eddie gets, the heavier he starts to feel. Heavier… but also a little like he’s floating. Like when Richie kisses him, he decides, and when he thinks about it like that he can’t find it in him to be afraid of it.

“Eds?”

“Rich,” Eddie says, slurring a little. It’s so hard to keep his eyes open, but he does, because it’s Richie. Richie’s talking to him.

“You okay?” Richie’s grip on him gets a little tighter, like he can also feel Eddie floating. Like he’s afraid he’ll drift away. Eddie snuggles in against him and has to remind himself again to keep his eyes open.

“Think so,” he says. “You worry too much.”

Someone laughs, soft and short – Ben? Bill? Eddie doesn’t care enough to find out.

“Imagine being told that by Eddie of all people.” Ah, so it was Ben.

“What’s wrong with him?” Richie asks, and Eddie remembers to open his eyes. It’s hard, though; they’re heavy, too. “Guys”—

“Eddie?” That’s Bev.

“Yeah,” Eddie says. Slow blink – not closing his eyes, just resting them. It makes everything around him sound so distant. Echoey, almost. He wonders if that’s what he sounds like to everyone else.

“Honey, open your eyes. Just for a second.”

Eddie groans, but he manages to do it. Suddenly everyone’s in front of him, and his legs feel heavy because at least one person’s squashing them.

“Do you know what you’re feeling?” Bill asks. It takes Eddie an embarrassingly long time to pick his face out from the others.

“Mm… heavy. Like – like Richie’s cats.”

Richie turns Eddie’s head gently with one hand, so their eyes meet and Eddie can see the tears standing out in the corners of Richie’s.

“Eddie”—

“Don’t cry,” Eddie reminds him. “It doesn’t hurt.”

“_Eddie,_” Richie repeats, looking panicked. “No, you can’t. You can’t just”—

Eddie doesn’t like that tone. It makes – it makes something in him hurt. He thinks about that, and as a little of the fog clears, he brings a hand up to his chest. Richie’s eyes follow the movement as a few tears escape down his cheeks, because he isn’t _listening._

“Oh,” Eddie breathes, because he _is_. “Huh.”

He takes Richie’s hand from his cheek and guides it to the same spot, warm and layered with bandages, and now Richie is the one shaking, so Eddie shushes him. Time stretches enough that it nearly slips away from him, and then Richie’s eyes widen behind his glasses.

“Can you feel it?” Eddie asks him, and he smiles.

“_Oh_,” Richie breathes, and soft, like his name is a prayer, “_Eddie_.”

“Feel what?”

“Richie?”

Richie is still crying, but Eddie decides to let it slide. “His heart’s beating,” he says, and then Eddie isn’t sure anymore if he’s crying or laughing. All he knows is that it doesn’t hurt him to hear it.

“He’s okay. He’s _okay._”

What follows is a lot of noise and a lot of gentle touching; Eddie can hardly follow any of it, but he’s almost too far away to care, anyway. He lets it happen and just… drifts, content to be anchored loosely in place by the hand Richie holds right over his heart.

The next time he remembers to open his eyes, he’s alone with Richie.

“Hey,” Richie says when their eyes meet. “Looks like it’s my turn, huh?”

“Mm,” Eddie agrees. He wants to ask Richie to talk to him, to stay with him, and – maybe most importantly – to let Eddie be the thing that gets him through the long, quiet hours, but he knows he won’t be able to get his mouth moving fast enough for all of that now.

So he lets his eyes fall shut one more time, and he settles for the shorthand.

“I love you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been bound and determined to use that card in this fic since I saw it around town the first week of October! (Yeah, I didn't invent that one - it's [right here](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/94/9a/23/949a23aaa55b57e275c3c76cf42ac3a4.jpg) if you're curious!) I was _so_ sure I could make it before Halloween, but sadly that didn't happen.
> 
> One more chapter to go! It's been a wild, wild ride writing this, and I'm hoping the end will live up to expectations! I have a few ideas on the table for what I'd like to write next. A few thoughts: an apocalypse au, a body swap fic, a 1990/2019 movie character swap (is this niche? I think it's niche), among others. I may well just wind up going with the one that most strikes my fancy when I'm no longer putting most of my energy towards this story, but by all means - chime in if any of those sound particularly good / you're interested in seeing more from me? My [tumblr inbox is always open](https://fluffifullness.tumblr.com/) (and empty lol).


	25. Chapter 25

When Eddie Kaspbrak opens his eyes, the first thing he sees is Richie Tozier.

His slow return to consciousness begins as a vague awareness of a weight on his chest – or, more accurately, as the slow realization that the weight isn’t any of the things his dreams had conjured up to explain the sensation. It’s really there, and it’s really making it a little hard to breathe. Eddie’s hand tangles in soft hair when he makes a blind, half-awake grab at the source of the pressure, and he hears a quiet groan as someone shifts against him.

When he tries to blink some of the fog out of his head and actually _look, _he finds Richie blinking blearily back up at him. He’s clearly just woken up, too, but he’s still wearing his glasses, and the lamp on the bedside table is on.

Without thinking, Eddie carefully adjusts the glasses so they’re not quite so crooked. He lets his hands linger by Richie’s temples for a moment longer, and then he slips one back up into Richie’s hair and the other down to rest on top of the hand Richie still has pressed to his heart.

“‘M sorry,” Richie mumbles, still a little dazed. “Didn’ mean to fall asleep…”

He looks about ready to do it again, though, so Eddie just smiles and settles back against the pillows to play with Richie’s hair and stroke the slightly chapped skin of his knuckles.

It takes a while – during which time Richie’s eyes slip shut and Eddie is convinced he really has gone back to sleep – but Richie finally jerks a little and raises his head to look at Eddie again.

“Wait, you’re awake. Shit. Are you – d’you feel okay?”

Eddie uses his grip on the back of Richie’s head to hold him gently in place when he tries to sit up; it’s just a quiet indication that he doesn’t want or need him to move, nowhere near strong enough to actually keep him where he is, but Richie immediately goes still again to watch him with wide, worried eyes.

“I feel good,” Eddie says, and winces at the sound of his own voice. It’s dry and raspy, and his throat hurts. It doesn’t exactly make for a convincing statement.

Richie frowns. “Wanna try that again?”

Eddie swallows. “I – I think maybe I need water,” he admits. He wonders if he looks as amazed at the prospect as he feels.

“Oh,” Richie says with a little nod. “Can I sit up for a sec?”

Reluctantly, Eddie lets Richie slide off of him; the sudden loss of contact leaves his whole torso feeling cold and exposed, so he lets his arm fall back across the empty space. It’s nowhere near as good as having Richie draped across him, but it helps.

He expects Richie to climb out of the bed, too, but instead he just reaches up and eases the straps of a backpack off his shoulders.

He catches Eddie doing a confused double take and cracks a grin. “Like it?”

“How – how did I not notice that,” Eddie croaks. “Why—?”

“Maybe because you’ve been asleep for” – Richie digs his phone out of a little mound of blankets and whistles – “almost two days? We just thought – you know, in case it doesn’t stick. It has, though,” he hurries to say when he takes in whatever Eddie’s expression does in response to _that_. “I’ve been with you the whole time, and everything’s been fine. But look” – he digs around in the bag and produces two bottles of water and a granola bar – “it’s still coming in handy, huh?”

Eddie takes one of the bottles and downs most of it in a few gulps. Richie watches him closely and pretends _not_ to be by continuing to explain, “Anyway, we couldn’t exactly have you wear this if you were gonna catch up on sleep, so I figured I’d literally keep in touch with you and that’d do the trick.”

Eddie clears his throat and tries again to talk. He’s still a little hoarse, but the scratchy pain in his throat is mostly gone.

“Thanks, Rich.”

Richie beams at him. “So, you feel good otherwise? Are you hungry?”

Tentatively, Eddie holds his hand out for the granola bar. “I might be.”

“You don’t know?” Richie asks curiously as Eddie unwraps it. “It’s gluten free, by the way. Ben and Bev brought them by the first day.”

“_You_ try not feeling hungry for two months and see how well _you _remember what it’s like,” Eddie grouses. He eyes the granola bar for a moment longer before finally taking a tiny bite.

Richie leans a little closer, cross-legged and expectant. It leaves him with very little space left to cross when Eddie’s eyes immediately fill with tears, so of course he puts a steadying hand on Eddie’s shoulder.

“Eddie? Is it not good? _Eds?_”

Eddie chews slowly and then swallows. It takes him another moment to say, “It’s pretty bad. Probably. But it tastes so – _so _fucking good.”

Richie gives Eddie a gentle, relieved smile, wipes at the tears that are already rolling down Eddie’s cheeks and says, “Well, no one _really _likes granola bars. They’re emergency back-up food for a reason.”

Eddie would laugh if he weren’t too busy devouring the too-dry, not-enough-berries “back-up food.” By the time he glances up from the now-empty wrapper, Richie’s already holding another one out to him.

When Eddie tries to grab it, though, Richie pulls it back long enough to get Eddie’s attention – which comes, of course, in the form of a glare.

“You should probably slow down,” he says, and then he lets Eddie take it on a second try.

Eddie rolls his eyes at Richie on principle, but he’s got a point; Eddie makes a grudging effort to eat a little slower, and when Richie offers him a third bar, he shakes his head. “Think I’ll just see how that sits.”

Richie looks genuinely disappointed by that. Eddie studies him for a moment, then flicks the empty wrapper at him.

“Hey! What’d I do?”

“I’m not an animal in a petting zoo,” Eddie grumbles. He can feel his cheeks getting hot; it’s such an unfamiliar sensation by now that he brings a startled hand to his face before he manages to make the connection between embarrassment and a blush.

That’s also how he realizes that he really needs a shave, and _that’s _what finally prompts him to take stock of the rest of himself while Richie is busy making some stupid joke about how cute he is – which is as endearing as it is ridiculous, given Eddie’s sudden, unpleasant awareness of what a mess he actually is.

At least he isn’t still wearing the same clothes he fell asleep in. Eddie peels back the covers to find that his jeans have been swapped for a pair of sweatpants he _definitely_ doesn’t recognize as his. The ends of them have been neatly rolled up several times, but they still hang on him so much that without the carefully-fastened drawstring, they’d definitely fall down if he were to stand up.

If Eddie hadn’t already been blushing, the realization that he’s wearing more of Richie’s clothes – and that Richie must have changed them for him while he was asleep – definitely would have done the trick.

But that isn’t all, because of course it isn’t. His shirt’s different, too. Eddie recognizes this one as one of Richie’s favorites, a tacky old souvenir shirt from some L.A. restaurant. Eddie’s watched Richie sleep in it tons of times, which makes it not only familiar but oddly comforting to see hanging on his own, smaller frame.

It’s also incredibly soft – soft enough that Eddie realizes something else with a little jolt of alarm. He can feel it moving directly against the skin of his chest, newly lacking the thick layer of bandages that would have separated them.

“Eddie?”

“What?” he answers distractedly, already moving to peel up the bottom of the T-shirt.

He sees Richie flinch out of the corner of his eye, so he lowers the shirt – but doesn’t quite let go of it – and turns to look at him. Richie doesn’t return the favor, opting instead to pick at a loose string on a similar pair of sweatpants – except that these ones, Eddie notes absently, _don’t _have a drawstring, and Richie clearly doesn’t need one. Probably doesn’t even use the one on the pair he’s lent to Eddie.

“Sorry. It’s just – you were asleep for so long, and I didn’t want to make you sleep forever in _jeans_, and I was – I mean you’ll probably hear it from one of the others, so – so yeah, I was really freaked out when you didn’t wake up right away. And I tried to justify it as part of getting you into something more comfortable, y’know? …Which maybe also wasn’t okay, but really I just had to make sure or I swear I”—

“Whoa, hey,” Eddie says as soon as his brain catches up to Richie’s breathless jumble of an explanation-slash-apology. “Richie, it’s okay. I’m not mad. I’m – uh – a little – it’s… a lot, but _not _in a bad way.”

He pauses to let that sink in and only starts talking again when Richie finally looks at him.

“So you took the bandages off to make sure I was okay?” Eddie clarifies.

Richie nods. “If you’re pissed about that, I understand, I know I said it was up to”—

“I’m _not_,” Eddie repeats impatiently. “I just – _am _I okay?”

Richie blinks. “Yeah – _yeah, _it’s okay. You’re okay. This isn’t the fucking ‘Tell-Tale Heart,’ I wouldn’t just sweep a gaping chest wound under the floorboards and feed you granola bars about it without saying anything.”

Eddie nods, letting the tension run off of him like rain down a windowpane. “Thank you. For taking care of me. And for doing the hard part alone. I mean that.”

Richie looks about ready to cry, so Eddie scoots forward to give him a brief hug that Richie inevitably deepens into a long embrace and a parting kiss that tastes like dried cranberries and morning breath. Somehow, Eddie doesn’t think he could bring himself to be disgusted by that if his life depended on it.

Richie presses another kiss to Eddie’s forehead and says, “It’s like you said. I wasn’t alone.” As if to illustrate his point, he presses one hand gently to Eddie’s chest, to the hammering, electric thudding within. “Do you wanna wait to look? Or do you wanna do it now?”

“Is it bad?” Eddie asks. “Never mind – don’t answer that.”

But Richie’s already shaking his head adamantly. “It’s _you_, Eds.”

“In other words, it’s a giant fucking scar – no, I guess it’d be _two _giant fucking scars. Fuck.”

Richie just gives him a patient look. “It’s fine if you’re not up to it. You did just wake up from the world’s longest nap. You think it’s too late to call Guinness?”

“I had a lot to catch up on,” Eddie says dryly. “And – are _you?”_

“Am I… up to seeing you shirtless?”

“…Yeah,” Eddie sighs. “Because if you’re gonna pull a face or whatever, I don’t think I”—

“I won’t,” Richie swears. “I promise.”

Eddie screws his eyes shut and doesn’t acknowledge Richie’s words beyond immediately lifting his shirt over his head in one smooth motion and then dropping it onto the covers between them. It’s only at that point that he realizes he didn’t have any semblance of a plan beyond that, so he freezes with his eyes still tightly shut and waits for a sudden flash of courage to get him moving again.

Finally, Richie takes both of Eddie’s hands in his own and says, “Just look at me. I’m right in front of you,” and Eddie does.

“There you go,” Richie says encouragingly. “See, the worst part’s already over.”

Eddie glares at him. “The best part, and don’t even fucking _think_ about telling me I’m wrong.”

Richie gives Eddie’s hands an embarrassed squeeze. “Okay,” he says lightly, and then he carefully guides one of Eddie’s hands up to his chest.

Eddie flinches automatically before his fingers have even connected with anything, so Richie stops and waits for his go ahead before continuing. All Eddie does is nod, and then he makes an undignified little sound when he feels smooth, unbroken skin under his fingertips. He keeps his eyes glued to Richie’s face while Richie gently guides his hand along the surface of the scar. Some of it is noticeably raised, and all of it feels different from his undamaged skin – like a scab, almost, but softer than that.

“Is this okay?”

“It’s big…”

Some part of him expects Richie to make an innuendo out of that comment, so he’s caught a little off guard when Richie just smiles at him instead.

“Yeah, it is,” he says honestly. “It was a big injury, Eds.”

“Is the – is my back the same, or worse?”

“It’s the same color, more or less, but it’s a little bigger and kinda uneven,” Richie says, pointedly not acknowledging Eddie’s choice of words. “You might have a hard time reaching it. Do you want a mirror? Want me to snap a picture?”

“Can you just – just touch it first?” Eddie asks with an internal wince. “Unless it’s – you don’t want to.”

“Eds,” Richie says, earnest and gentle and a little sad. “You bet your ass I want to. I just wanna know you’ll tell me if I – I don’t know, go too long, or make you uncomfortable. Okay? I’ve never really – I don’t know where the line is.”

Eddie swallows thickly. “Well I don’t, either. But you know I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t trust you, Rich.”

“…Thank you,” Richie says softly. He waits for Eddie to turn around enough that he can reach the skin of his back; when he lets go of Eddie’s hand, Eddie keeps it where it is to continue his own tactile exploration. He jumps a little when Richie settles in to trace what he assumes must be the edges of the scar on his back, and Richie immediately freezes.

“I’m okay,” Eddie reassures him. “I’m okay.”

Richie presses a gentle kiss to the back of Eddie’s neck and murmurs, “You’re better than okay. I’m so fucking lucky, Eds.”

Inexplicably, Eddie finds himself wishing he’d move down and pepper kisses to the skin he resumes tracing with gentle, slow touches. It’s distracting, and that’s good; when Eddie finally dares to glance down at his chest, he’s simultaneously startled and underwhelmed.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

“It’s gonna take some getting used to,” Eddie mutters, tracing the line of pink-white scarring with the tip of his pointer finger. The scar looks out of place on him, alien, and if he’s being honest, it makes him a little uneasy, seeing something so unfamiliar front and center on his own body – but that isn’t all, because he’s safe and _alive _and his heart is beating under that scar and Richie’s touching it like he’s the furthest thing from disgusted by it.

In fact, Eddie realizes, Richie’s tracing hearts into it.

“That makes sense,” Richie murmurs. “Does it hurt? Or itch? I was doing some reading online before you woke up, and apparently they can itch sometimes. Scars, I mean.”

“It just feels tight,” Eddie muses. “Like a sunburn.”

Richie snorts. “Remember that really nasty sunburn you got when we were like fifteen and we spent the entire day swimming in the quarry?”

“Yeah, it was _your _idea, and my mom had a fucking fit about it because I let you convince me not to worry about sunscreen in the middle of July.”

“But it was fun?” Richie offers.

“Fuck yeah it was,” Eddie complains. “It was annoying. I couldn’t even be mad because it was so _obviously _worth it.”

Richie laughs, soft and a little distracted. When he abruptly stops tracing shapes into the raised lines of Eddie’s scar, Eddie turns his head slightly to investigate and is rewarded with a sloppy kiss from Richie, who just as quickly breaks away to slide forward across the rumpled bed sheets so that his chest and Eddie’s back slot together and he can wrap his arms all the way around him.

“Okay?” he wonders, a little self-conscious despite the easy confidence of the maneuver.

“Very,” Eddie sighs, settling back against Richie as Richie tucks his chin into the crook of his neck. “Never knew little things like this could feel so nice.”

Eddie _feels_ Richie laugh again more than he hears it. It makes him giddy and lightheaded in the best possible way.

“So, any requests? Wanna go see a movie? Eat a fancy meal? Go bowling? Ride an overcrowded Metro car?”

Eddie rolls his eyes and reaches up to give Richie’s hair a playful little tug. “Why would you ask me if I want to do something else _after _starting something you know I won’t want to interrupt?”

“Aw, c’mon,” Richie says just as playfully, pressing more wet kisses to Eddie’s cheeks, apparently unperturbed by the scratch of his stubble. “There must be something. We’ve got the whole day ahead of us.”

“No,” Eddie says softly, “we’ve got a whole life.”

-*-

Ben is still asleep beside Beverly when she gets a call from Richie. It’s mid-morning and the sun’s been up for a while, but she suspects Richie’s been up a lot longer than that; she and Ben have been keeping strange enough hours, themselves, and they’re not the ones keeping up a constant vigil by Eddie’s bedside, frequent visits aside.

She imagines he’s there now, one hand held over Eddie’s beating heart, as if his touch alone could keep it going if the worst should happen.

But it _won’t, _she tells herself again. She’s seen more than her share of the cruelty the world has to offer, and she can’t believe it would do that to either of her friends, after everything else they’ve been through. They’ve earned every bit of this miracle.

She has Ben, sleeping off a particularly exhausting nightmare that woke them both up late last night, and Richie has Eddie, sleeping off another kind of nightmare entirely. The thing about nightmares is that everyone wakes up from them sometime.

She closes her laptop and sets it back on the bed before padding softly out to their hotel room’s little balcony and sliding the door shut behind her.

As soon as she’s reasonably certain she won’t wake Ben, she answers the call.

“Richie, hi,” she says. “How’s he doing today?”

Eddie’s voice answers her.

“Um – pretty good. Richie’s showering,” he says, sounding a little amused and a little sheepish. “What about you guys?”

Beverly presses her palm to her lips, but she doesn’t actually smother the overjoyed laugh that comes rushing out of her. “_Eddie_. Good morning. I – we’re good. Ben’s still asleep. I don’t know about Bill and Mike. How long have you been awake?”

“A couple hours, I think. Long enough to know I need to eat more than a few granola bars. Oh, but – thanks for those. Richie said you brought them.”

“Yeah, were they good? I guess anything would be, right?”

Eddie laughs quietly. “For a first meal, they worked fine.”

“Get Richie to cook you a real first meal!” Beverly says with a smile. He’d probably be thrilled to do it, given his track record up ‘til now. There’s just something extra special about preparing food with and for the people you love. Like that morning in Derry – a spot of badly needed cheer on the heels of so much loss. She wonders if she should ask Eddie what that scene was like for him, but then again – why not make an offer of it, instead?

So she says, “Or we could all get together and make a little feast. Just for the hell of it, you know?”

And she thinks Eddie probably knows why she says it, unless she’s just imagining the gratitude in his tone when he answers, “You stole the words right out of my mouth.”

-*-

Richie’s never seen anyone so excited to wipe down a countertop, chop vegetables or open a door, but Eddie does all of that and more with a gigantic smile on his face and at least as much enthusiasm as he throws into the hugs he gives all their friends as they arrive for an early dinner – first Bill and Mike, who cheerfully give Audra a proper introduction to Eddie, and then Ben and Bev carrying a definitely excessive amount of groceries between them.

Eddie gets those hugs back twice as strong, and Richie thinks he could probably spend forever watching Eddie enjoy the little things and never get tired of it. He’s so busy doing just that – watching Eddie heat olive oil in a frying pan, watching Eddie narrowly avoid slicing open the tip of his finger and still insist on swapping the blade for a fresh, “clean” one, watching him soak up light conversation like it’s the most thrilling thing he’s ever participated in, like he’s got thousands of words all pent up inside of him and can barely contain the relief of finally being able to make them heard – that he doesn’t even notice Beverly sidle up to him until her elbow connects with his ribs.

“_Ow_, what”—

“Were you planning to lend a hand at some point?” she teases, and then she lowers her voice enough that for anyone to overhear, they’d have to be listening in intentionally. “Or are you just going to keep staring?”

Instead of a sick, anxious lurch, all Richie feels in response to that little quip is a nervous flutter. Butterflies in his stomach. Eddie picks that moment to meet Richie’s eyes from across the room; they share a private little smile before Eddie turns back to Audra to answer another question about how he’s spent the past two months. She looks like she can’t decide how much of it she believes, but she clearly enjoys a good ghost story either way.

When Richie finally deigns to turn back to Beverly, he catches her eying Ben with open interest. It’s all too easy to grin and retort, just as good-naturedly, “I don’t know, I was kinda wondering the same thing about you.”

“Well,” Beverly laughs, raising her hands in mock surrender and playing at embarrassment she clearly doesn’t feel, “it is a nice view.”

“Richie, get your ass over here and help stir this,” Eddie calls. Richie only waits long enough to wink at Beverly; he doesn’t quite manage to work up the nerve to give Eddie a greeting peck on the cheek when he slips in alongside him, but he does press one hand to the small of his back.

Eddie leans into the touch with a contented sigh before somewhat reluctantly passing the spatula he’d been holding to Richie.

“I’m gonna give Mike a hand with the marinade,” he says apologetically. “You can probably just give that another five minutes and turn it down to low.”

“Will do,” Richie promises, already turning back to the food on the stove.

But Eddie doesn’t move away. Their friends are all chatting around them – Mike about the extra day or two he’d like to stick around before he should think about catching a flight back to Florida, Bill and Audra about all the places he should try to see in that time, Ben and Bev each with a few ideas of their own – which eventually leads to some debate about how and where they might all meet again in a few months for the holidays, and so on.

Richie is just hyperaware enough of Eddie’s lingering warmth at his side that he waits with bated breath and _doesn’t _immediately jump into a loud explanation of why Florida is obviously the place to go – which it is, and he fully intends to convince everyone of that, at least until Eddie gives his sleeve a gentle tug and leans a little closer.

Richie blinks, reading the question in Eddie’s eyes.

Richie hesitates long enough to glance around at their friends; he almost catches Bill’s gaze, but he’s looking at Eddie, and then his eyes are back on Mike and the pictures he’s excitedly pulled up on his phone – rescue dogs up for adoption back home, from the sound of it.

Richie turns back to meet Eddie’s patient look. He leans in just so, silent permission granted, and Eddie beams at him as he cranes his neck up for a kiss.

-*-

The best and hardest part of getting a second chance at life turns out to be the work that goes into _making _it. It’s a process – like coming back from the foggy, immaterial space between existing and not – and it means breaking nearly every rule Eddie’s spent his whole life following to a T.

It also means learning to recognize all the endless ways it’s possible to be happy. It means calling Myra to have one of the most difficult conversations of his fucking life, and it means being able to turn to Richie afterward for a shoulder to cry on. He doesn’t even know _why _he cries, if it’s out of relief or fear or some incredibly disorienting combination of both. Richie doesn’t ask, and Eddie loves him for that. For meeting him where he is, every step of the way.

The first time they go out together, it’s for groceries they don’t particularly need, as many leftovers as they wind up with on the heels of their impromptu dinner party-slash-welcome back celebration.

Richie’s palm is already clammy when he takes Eddie’s hand in his less than a block out from their apartment. Eddie responds to his white-knuckled grip with a gentle squeeze, and Richie’s breath hitches. Instead of looking away, he looks right at Eddie, and Eddie resists the urge to kiss the crease of his brow.

“You good?” he asks, not quite sure how to say that he doesn’t want to enjoy anything at the expense of Richie’s comfort.

“Are you?” Richie asks, his voice just this side of too high to sound relaxed.

“Yes,” Eddie says without hesitation, “if you are.”

“I want to be,” Richie says, nervously eyeing a passerby who takes approximately no notice of them. That, at least as much as Eddie’s reassurance, seems to help lessen the bunched tension lining Richie’s whole frame.

“No rush,” Eddie says lightly, gently bumping their shoulders together. Emboldened by Richie _not _immediately flinching or casting another nervous glance at their surroundings, he continues, “Actually, Rich, I wanna clarify something… Which I probably should’ve thought to do _before_ we left. Sorry.”

Richie starts to let go of Eddie’s hand and only resumes holding on when Eddie doesn’t mimic the gesture. His voice shakes a little when he says, “Okay – shoot.”

“Well – maybe it won’t even come up, but you know it’s been a while since I had to consider having any audience for – uh, _anything _I do, right?”

Richie nods a little forlornly. “Miss it yet?”

“No, I don’t,” Eddie promises. “Actually, fuck these assholes for not looking a little more jealous.”

Richie blinks. “Uh”—

“My _point,” _Eddie rushes to explain, “is I want to touch you, a lot, but only as much as you’ll let me, and I’ll keep trying to pay attention, but if I cross any lines in public” – he smiles sheepishly over the flash of déjà vu – “just know I _want _to know about it. I don’t expect you to just” – he shrugs – “get over several decades of being afraid. Trust me, okay, I know it doesn’t fucking work like that.”

Magic may be able to accomplish a lot, after all, but for some things there’s only time and care.

Richie doesn’t say anything for a while; it isn’t until they’ve picked up a basket and wandered into the produce section – Eddie’s had enough of writing notes for now, so so what if they don’t have an actual shopping list just this one more time – that Richie finally clears his throat and says, “Thanks, Eds.”

Eddie smiles and gives Richie’s arm a little tug before letting go of his hand to inspect an avocado. “You’re welcome. Baby steps, right?”

“Baby steps,” Richie agrees.

-*-

It’s actually Richie who first suggests that Eddie go see a doctor, which evidently comes as a surprise to both of them. Eddie responds by setting down the glass he’d been cleaning and going, “Holy shit. I can get sick. And I haven’t even gotten my flu shot.”

He looks more pointedly at Richie and says, almost accusingly, “And neither have you! It’s so late, I can’t believe I hadn’t thought about this.”

“I meant more like – just to make sure everything’s good with your internal organs?” Richie says uncertainly. “But I guess we can also go get flu shots. Maybe make it a two-for-one if they’ll let us?”

Eddie nods, but his expression is suddenly distant. “I really… really hadn’t thought about it. I never… _don’t _worry about things like that.”

“Should I not have brought it up? It was just an idea. There haven’t been any problems so obviously if you don’t wanna rehash it”—

“No, no, you’re right. I’d probably feel better with some actual confirmation. It’s just… weird. How not worried I am.”

“Bad weird or good weird?” Richie asks when Eddie resumes meticulously scrubbing the outer rim of the glass and then passes it to Richie to rinse.

“Good weird,” Eddie says. The total lack of hesitation comes as a huge relief to Richie. So maybe he _didn’t _just trip into a landmine. “It’s not like it’s never come and gone before. I mean, it’s probably better if I don’t start running through all the possible ways I could be falling apart after everything lately, but. Normally I’d be all over something like… literally dying and just mysteriously getting over it. Finding some symptom to worry about, or inventing one out of thin fucking air.”

“Well, it’s hard to top that,” Richie notes with a little smile. The hand he presses to Eddie’s shoulder leaves a damp spot, which Eddie repays by swatting at Richie’s cheek with one dish soap-smeared hand.

They wind up having to re-rinse a few dishes after an impromptu water fight that inevitably results in soapy water splashing all over the place. It’s simultaneously just like the wars of attrition that used to play out among the lot of them when they were kids fucking around in the quarry, and totally different from that, because now it happens in their kitchen, in the apartment they share, right on the heels of a meal they cooked together, and it ends with a kiss.

Eddie gets his clean bill of health from a doctor not long after, and Richie gets a flu shot for the first time in at least a decade.

-*-

There are lots of light moments like that – like the sheet ghost costume Eddie lets Richie talk him into wearing for Halloween, or the extraordinarily late arrival of Richie’s Ouija board a grand total of ten days past the original delivery estimate. Eddie ribs him for not selecting premium shipping, and Richie swears up and down he hadn’t noticed it was even an option.

They try their hand at using it, and it doesn’t work – unless Richie blatantly moving the planchette himself counts, which is about as much as Eddie ever expected of the thing. Go figure.

There’s also the flash of jealousy on Richie’s face when Mike texts them all a picture of the newly-adopted Mr. Chips – a floppy-eared, bright-eyed dog Eddie honestly can’t pin a breed to beyond “medium sized and brown.” He’s not the least bit surprised that it takes Richie less than twenty-four entire hours to start showing him pictures of dogs at local adoption centers. He so clearly has a penchant for small breeds that Eddie finally can’t resist asking him about it one morning as they’re lingering in bed, all alarms long since turned off and the clock gradually ticking toward the absolute last possible moment to get up.

“I just want a stupid dog,” Richie responds immediately. “Like, the dumber the better. That’s literally _why _Chihuahuas were invented. Probably.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “Why, because you want it to be like you?”

Richie claps a hand to his chest like he’s just been shot with an arrow. He very narrowly avoids slapping the hand Eddie already has pressed to its usual spot, startling a soft swear out of him but not quite convincing him to actually move.

“I’ll have you know it would be about the ego boost. That’s how dumb we’re talking,” Richie says.

“In that case, a Chihuahua is probably our best bet,” Eddie muses.

Richie rolls over to face him, half-squinting to try to make out Eddie’s expression without his glasses. He’s already breaking into a huge, surprised grin, and Eddie wonders if he could possibly manage to put Richie off long enough to surprise him at Christmas – if only to see how much brighter that smile can get.

“You think so?” he breathes. “Oh my god, I can’t wait to name it.”

-*-

Eddie doesn’t make it as far as Christmas by a long shot before he caves and lets Richie talk him into adopting Cujo the Chihuahua – Richie’s name choice, naturally, and apparently the most hilarious thing Bill’s ever heard when he catches wind of it. Eddie swears he’ll come up with something better to call her, but it sticks, and that’s that.

That’s also a perfect excuse to surprise Richie another way, at least; Cujo has apparently boundless energy, which makes frequent walks a definite must. All Eddie has to do is invite Richie out for one a little after dark, when the crowds have thinned and Richie won’t have to feel quite so many eyes on him in a private moment. Eddie wants this to be easy.

They set off along the increasingly familiar route that leads to a nearby park. It’s well lit, or Eddie wouldn’t have even considered it an option, but all the same, he’s glad for the knife he keeps hidden away in his jacket pocket.

Richie only starts throwing curious looks Eddie’s way when he asks him to wait a moment and then pops into one of their favorite coffee shops – a twenty-four hour place Eddie only ever wants to visit a lot earlier in the day – only to reemerge with two drinks in hand.

“Now I know you’re up to something,” Richie mutters when Eddie resumes their walk, to Cujo’s loudmouthed delight. “Coffee after five? What have you done with my uptight boyfriend?”

“They’re decaf,” Eddie admits. “And I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

By the time they reach the spot Eddie’s been eyeing for over a week, Cujo’s calmed down enough to allow a comfortable silence to settle around the three of them; she contents herself with sniffing around the tree Eddie guides Richie to. Once they’ve both gotten as comfortable as a patch of grass and a narrow tree trunk can reasonably allow, Eddie finally passes one of the two drinks to Richie and then pulls the knife out of his pocket.

Richie blinks in surprise when he sees it, his face dimly illuminated by the orange light of one of the lamps dotting the walkway in front of them.

“Is this a”—

“A symbolic thing, yeah.”

Richie laughs, more of a breathless exhalation than a sound, and says, “Aw, Eds. I had no idea you missed coffee that much.”

Eddie gives him a light shove. “Shuddup, maybe I _did_. Or…”

“Or?” Richie repeats, leaning in close.

Eddie can feel his face heating up so much that he begins to regret picking a particularly well-lit spot for this, safety be damned. Richie looks unbearably smug about it, but the hand he brings up to brush Eddie’s cheek is gentle enough to finally loosen his lips.

“I don’t know,” Eddie begins only a little self-consciously. This, unlike the million and one different love confessions he first imagined for himself, isn’t rehearsed. “Maybe it’s about what we managed to make of… everything. I just think, sometimes – about all the things that could have happened differently. About how maybe it was all just one big coincidence, and none of this was meant to happen – and maybe I wasn’t even meant to be here, but…”

“But here we are anyway, right?” Richie murmurs.

“Here we are anyway,” Eddie echoes.

Richie perks up a little. “Hey, it’s like that line in _Sleepless in Seattle_. The lady”—

“Meg Ryan,” Eddie supplies, nonplussed.

Richie rolls his eyes. “Meg Ryan – you know, about destiny being a made up thing because people don’t like to think that everything’s just a coincidence?”

Eddie’s honestly surprised he remembers that. “But she says that _before_ she meets her soul mate. The whole movie’s kind of about destiny… but I guess they do kind of make it for themselves, don’t they? All those coincidences just kind of help them along.”

Richie’s grin widens like something else has just occurred to him, and he rocks forward fast enough that leaves crunch under his shoes. Cujo comes to investigate the sound but loses interest just as quickly. “Aw, Eds, do you relate to Meg Ryan’s character in that movie? That’s so cute!”

Eddie scoffs. “No, she just happens to feel trapped in an engagement she keeps because she thinks it’s what people are _supposed_ to do, and she thinks she’s wrong for not being happy with it – why would I relate to that?”

“Huh,” Richie says, soft. “Yeah, I get it.”

Eddie sighs. “Maybe what I’m trying to say is just… I _like _to think it’s about what we choose. Because I’d choose you, every time, Rich. And I never want to stop reminding you of that.”

The tear that winds its way down Richie’s cheek is a bright spot in the artificial light that surrounds them. Eddie kisses it away, and Richie’s voice is so choked with emotion that he practically whispers those three little words that are big enough to fill the sky above them.

“I love you.”

Eddie takes Richie’s hand in his, and together they turn to carve their initials into the soft wood between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so it ends! Thank you to all of you for the many kind words and for following along this far! It's been a challenge but also a lot of fun to write something so lengthy. I may not be 100% satisfied with some parts / had more thoughts and plans for a few things that didn’t make it in by the end, but all the same I’m pretty happy with this fic as it stands! I'm definitely excited to get another little something going for this pairing soon! ;3
> 
> Update: [And of course I did wind up writing a short little sequel/coda piece if you'd like a little more!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21945406)


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